I don't think I needed the alarm. I was pretty
much packed from the night before - just needed to throw my pajamas in the
suitcase and I was done.
We had tickets on the Heathrow Express back to
the airport. They don't have a set time. A train leaves Paddington Station every
15 minutes. Our hotel was about ½ mile away from that station, but with heavy,
full suitcases and carry-on bags, I wasn't going to complain about the Uber
Cynthia summoned for us.
The Uber dropped us off at the taxi area on
the back of the station. Until now, we'd only gone through the pedestrian
entrance on a different street. We had to take an elevator down one level from
the street. The station on this side was unusually quiet. Luckily, there were
signs on the floor leading you to either the Heathrow Express or the regular
Tube trains, so we didn't struggle for more than a couple of minutes before
figuring out where to go.
We passed through the automatic gates that
scanned our tickets and were between two trains. A man ran past us and hopped
on the train to the left. We had first-class tickets, so I didn't want to just
hop on a train without orienting myself, so we walked down the platform toward
some workers. The train the man jumped on left while we were walking.
I approached a worker, showing him my ticket
and he said, "Why are you showing me your ticket? Just get on a
train." Well, on the other end, at the start of the journey, I needed to
show my ticket before getting on to the train in a first-class car. This guy
didn't care what we did and was angry to be approached by someone. Ah, London. Thank
you for bookending my vacation with angry workers who are resentful they have
to do jobs.
We got on the remaining train, in one of the
first-class cars, and sat down. We started out alone in the car, but one man did
hop on before the train departed. He sat a good distance away from us, which
was good because he was coughing.
After a quick train journey, we found
ourselves back at the airport. I tried once again to check-in at one of the
automatic kiosks, but was given a card to report to an agent instead of a
boarding pass. Cynthia got her boarding passes. I was ushered through to the
back-checking agents and they were able to print my boarding passes after
informing me that I would have to go through customs and security in Dallas
before continuing to Burbank. I don't know why I needed extra waring while my
sister didn't, but whatever.
The security line was a little bit different
than in the US. There were tables where you could search through your carry-on
bag before going through the scanners, to make sure you didn't forget any
liquids or electronics. We didn’t stop here, since I think we both knew where
our extra scan required items were in our bags and we could easily find and
remove them.
Even though in Burbank I didn't have to take
my phone or iPad out of my bag, I had to in London. But I didn't have to take
my shoes off. You only had to take your shoes off if you were asked to do so. I
made it through the security scan with no problems. Cynthia was no so lucky. Her
bag was flagged in the x-ray machine and she had to stand with an agent while
he searched through her bag for whatever had looked suspicious. I sat and
waited. It was a rattail comb in her bag that had looked like a knife. And she
had too many liquids so they threw a couple of them away.
We sat at our gate, and only had about 30
minutes left until the airplane would start to board. Good thing we did give
ourselves the full 3 hours they suggested to get through the airport because
apparently that wasn't an exaggeration. I got a tea at Starbucks and a Coke for
Cynthia at a newsstand. We were in the second-to-last boarding group, so had to
wait while watching almost everyone else get on the plane. Airlines - window
seats should go first! I don't understand the stupid way that people are loaded
onto planes.
This time the flight was full. There were no
empty middle seats. And this wasn't a redeye flight. We left London at 1:10 PM
and I was scheduled to arrive in Burbank at around 9 PM.
My vegetarian lunch this time was a little
better - not vegan. It was also the same as the vegetarian option all of the
passengers had, but I was given my tray early to make sure they didn't run out
of that selection. It was paneer in curry with rice, a chocolate brownie, a
bread roll and quinoa coleslaw. The snack later in the day was less appetizing
- a toasted pastry filled with zucchini and marinara sauce. I only took a
couple of bites of that one. Yuck.
I watched three movies on this leg. The
Beekeeper: terrible writing and acting, but not bad enough to turn off. Bullet
Train: by the same guy who directed The Fall Guy. I liked it overall. Aaron
Taylor-Johnson was very good and I would have preferred that his character not die,
even though he was a bad guy. Brian Tyree Henry was also excellent. It was pretty
good. I took a break and wrote up a lot of this travel memoir, even though my
keyboard had died and I had to enter it on the little keyboard on the iPad
screen. With just over 1 ½ hours remaining, I watched Relax, I'm From the
Future because it fit the time constraints. It was ok, but had some confusing
logic in it. Best not to think too much about it. It was short and not didn't
require a lot of thought to watch.
Back in the US, we had to go through customs at
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW). Luckily, the line for citizens was shorter than the
line for people visiting the country, so we got through the customs line pretty
fast. Nothing to declare!
Then we had to go collect our suitcases and
drop them off in a different location. It seemed stupid, but I guess it was
just to make sure that there weren't unclaimed bags getting on plane transfers.
I got an email that a lot of suitcases didn't make the flight, so to not freak
out if our suitcases were there. Luckily, they both made it. I would have been
surprised if they didn't considering how early we got to Heathrow.
From dropping off our suitcases, we had to go
back through a security line. This line was long. It was estimated to take 20 minutes
from a place in the line that was still 15 minutes away from us. That's how
they counted it as far as I could tell. They didn't just say, "From here,
it is 35 minutes." Nope. Fifteen minutes from here to where it will be
another 20 minutes. This is where it started to look like we might not make our
connections. I was still optimistic, but things could go south.
We finally got to the scanning area and this
time, I was the one who got pulled aside for a bag search. I had packed a lot
of tea in my carry-on, because it was heavy, and the tins looked suspicious. A
TSA worker pulled all the tea out of my bag and swabbed the containers. He put
the swab in a scanner and it set off an alarm! He had to call a supervisor
over. My sister, worried she'd miss her connection, left me at security. I
wasn't bothered. The supervisor and original TSA worker opened all of my
unopened teas and said, as they looked into each one, "That's tea."
They swabbed them one at a time and this time the alarm didn't go off. They
offered to pack my bag for me, but I said I would do it.
I packed my bag and found my gate. I then went
into the toilet and removed my compression socks. I hate them! I only left them
on this long because I knew I'd be taking my shoes off at DFW for the security
line and didn't want to walk barefoot on the airport floor.
I was getting email updates for both my flight
and my sister's flight. Both flights were delayed and kept changing gates. My
flight left at least an hour late, so worrying about the long security line was
a waste of time. The delays were weather related. There were big storms all
across the country. As a result, the flight to Burbank was bumpy to an
uncomfortable degree. I was relieved when we landed safely. My friend who had
been watching my cats picked me up and drove me home. All of my cats, except
for Shio, came out to see me as soon as I got home. My house was just even
messier than I left it. The cats knocked a couple of chairs over, but
everything was fine.
I had been up for close to 24 hours by then,
and fell asleep pretty quickly. Glad to be home. My vacation this time was
short enough, though, that I'm not swearing off traveling again like I did in 2014.
The flights were brutal, but I could see doing it again under the right circumstances.
The right circumstances might have to be saving up to fly business class,
though.
The end.
(The cookies from M&S that were delicious and beautiful.)
(Diva happy to have me home.)