Well, I'm back at it again. My second trip to Europe, just two short years after Italy. Time has really flown. Sometimes I can still taste Dario's burger bursting with beefy goodness. Or still feel the overwhelming awe looking out over St. Peter's Square. I wanted to recreate those moments, so Brenda, Nikki and I headed back over the pond to check out London, Scotland and Ireland. These areas ranked pretty highly for all three of us on our world bucket list, so it was an easy decision to make.
Like last time, Brenda and I drove up to Chicago to meet Nikki and fly out of there. I really wish St. Louis was still an international hub. Driving 5 hours up to Chicago to then sit on a plane for 8 hours is not exactly my idea of a neat time. However, I do thoroughly enjoy direct flights with no layovers. That's what we opted to do this time, straight from O'Hare to London Heathrow. We have a bit of experience dealing with the overwhelming power of Heathrow, so we thought we'd give it a try again. And, at least this time we shouldn't have to race through the terminals.
4:00 a.m.
Wide. Awake. When I'm anxious, nervous or excited, I can't sleep very well. Of course, neither does 98% of the population, so I shouldn't be too surprised about it. I was up nearly an hour before my alarm even went off, but I finally gave up and decided I might as well get in the shower. Sleep would prove to be an elusive beast over the next 48 hours. We decided to get an early start even though our flight didn't leave until 6:00pm. I'm notoriously early for flights, and since we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, we didn't want to leave anything to chance.
5:00-7:00 a.m.
Windows. Check. Passport. Check. Appliances. Check. Passport. Check. Doors. Check. Passport. Check. Faucets. Check. Passport. Check. A/C. Check. Passport. Check.
I spent the better part of those two hours finishing packing and quadruple checking that my house was ready for me to be gone for two weeks. My friend Betsy would be checking on it again for me, but I had little else to do while I waited for Brenda to arrive. Well, other than constantly checking to be sure I had my passport. (It's amazing...I barely let it out of my sight the whole day we were traveling, but once we made it over there, I rarely thought about it!)
6:45 a.m.
Brenda was early. And this is why we're friends. Neither one of us could sleep, so we got an even earlier start that we had planned.
The road trip went off without a hitch as we discussed our expectations and hopes from the trip. I didn't really have anything that I hoped would happen, other than meeting a dashing Scotsman/Irishman, so I was open for anything. The travel God was on our side and we had no troubles making it to the Windy City. A quick lunch with our favorite travel companion, Nikki, and we realized it was roughly 1:00pm. Nothing like having 5 hours to kill.
Nikki's boyfriend drove us to the airport again, and he wanted to head out of town early so he could get his weekend plans started. No big deal for us, we love getting to the airport early. A few quick hiccups when our check-in didn't produce any luggage tags, but other than that, we spent most of our time going through security and wandering around the terminals until our flight departed.
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| Flat Nate was excited to fly American. |
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| TV screens in the back of the seats again. Bingo! |
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| Ready for his second international trip of the year. |
As much as I love traveling to Europe, I really dislike being stuck on a plane for 8 hours. I hate to see what happens if I ever make it to Australia or New Zealand like I want. Maybe I'll have to wait until I win the lottery or find a sugar daddy so I can sit in the really fancy reclining seats at the front of the plane. Hmmm, maybe one day.
I contemplated going ahead and taking my Tylenol PM as soon as we were seated on the plane, but I didn't want to miss dinner, so I opted to wait. For those of you who know me well, you know I don't do very well if I miss a meal. Hungry Heather=Cranky Heather. So, I held off, and waited for the meal to be served. Unfortunately, it wasn't served until around 2 hours into the flight. And those two hours didn't even produce a nap for me, so this was the start of a long journey that wouldn't end until 24+ hours later.
I'm beginning to get used to the airplane meals on international flights. They're nothing if not thorough with the selection, although it's not always the freshest. This time it was a ravioli/lasagna meal, a dry roll and butter, dry crackers and spreadable cheese, small salad with creamy pepper dressing, a brownie and bottled water. By the time they served the meal, I ate it, and they removed our trays, an hour had gone by, so that left only 4-5 hours left in our trip. I remembered I had my Tylenol PM, but knew it was probably too late for it to do any good. I attempted to nap, and maybe only got 2-3 hours of interrupted sleep in before they brought breakfast: a croissant with jelly, OJ and yogurt.
My body was seriously confused at this point. It felt like after midnight, but I couldn't get comfortable and sleep to save my life. My feet and fingers had started to swell, due to lack of fluids or movement, I'm not sure. I walked around the plane a bit frustrated that I should be sleeping, but knowing it would never happen. I looked at Brenda and Nikki and most of the rest of the passengers with jealousy. How could they sleep so soundly and with such ease?
Even though I couldn't sleep, at least I wasn't sitting in 37D. Nikki had that unfortunate honor. And 37D tried very hard to make Nikki's life miserable. First, there was a big metal box under the seat in front of her which made stretching her feet out nearly impossible. Then, she couldn't find her neck pillow that she had put underneath the seat right before take off. It was just....gone. And the earphone jack wouldn't work at all. None of the earphones would even fit into the slot. So she couldn't even watch tv to pass the time. But, then again, she mostly slept, so I guess it was better that she had the malfunctioning jack instead of me. (She did eventually find her travel pillow. It had migrated past the seat in front of her to the seat in front of that. The guy sitting in front of her didn't think anything of the rogue pillow filling his foot space. Had Nikki not asked when we landed, she might never have gotten it back.)
We eventually landed in London, earlier than scheduled, and retrieved our luggage without fail. And from the moment our feet landed on British soil, we didn't stop moving for the next 300 hours.
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