Saturday—a very sad day. The day our wonderful trip to England would end and we would be forced to go home to the horribly hot, humid Louisiana weather. We would have to say good bye to the incredible theatre, architecture, shopping, and dining of London—a very sad day indeed. My one consolation was the fact that after being away from my family for almost three weeks, I would finally be able to see them and fill them in on all the amazing (and sometimes unbelievable) experiences I had had since I’d been gone. I was very excited to see my family again.
That morning we left our dorms at 6:30AM to make the half-mile walk with all of our heavy luggage to the tube station where we would catch the tube back to Heathrow Airport. The ride to Heathrow was quite long and relaxing. We had plenty of time to go through security, grab some food, and wait for our flight back to Miami…yeah right!
From the moment we got to Heathrow, chaos ensued. The moment our group made it to the self-check-in line to check our baggage, all the self-check-in machines went down. So here we are, stuck in a very crowded line with hundreds of other people trying to check their baggage, and all the machines are down. So my professor goes over to one of the attendants to see if she can help move us up the check-in line. The lady pulls our group out of the line and tells us to wait and she’ll move us up. So we wait. Ten minutes later, a different attendant tells us we need to get back in the line, that the lady had misinformed us. So we get back into the line. And we wait some more.
Then a third person comes and pulls our group out of line and tells us to wait on the side. Three times! Three times, different people would come and pull us out of line then put us back in. Time is ticking away before our flight and we still haven’t gotten our luggage checked or gone through security.
Finally, we make it to the front of the line after waiting for about 45 minutes. I go up for my turn, and the lady at the check-in desk takes my bag. I asked her if my bag was going straight to New Orleans or if I would have to recheck it in Miami. She said I would have to claim it, go through customs, and recheck it in Miami. Great. We only have about an hour and a half layover in Miami. If we all have to go through this process, it would take a miracle for us to make our connecting flight.
But we all got our bags checked then proceeded to go through security. Though going through security is always a pain in the neck, at least this time, we all went through without anybody getting ‘randomly selected for additional screening.’ Yay!
We’re running through the airport trying to find our gate since our plane leaves in a few minutes. Out of breath, we find our gate, and discover that our plane has been delayed by about an hour. This cut even more into the very short time we would have to go through the customs process in Miami. But my professor tried to keep positive by telling us there was a good chance the plane would make up for lost time in the air. So we held out hope.
Now it’s almost 11AM, and none of us have eaten because we had been rushing all morning to catch our plane. And due to security, none of us could have packed any food with us in our carryon. But, because security was so strict at the Heathrow they wouldn’t let us go back into the airport to get food once we had made it to our terminal. And no food does not make for happy campers. But they did tell us the plane would serve food.
Our plane arrived, we boarded, and soon after took off for the 10 hour flight back across the pond. The plane was equipped with TV screens on the back of each chair so everyone could watch movies and TV shows, and they offered a pretty good selection. I was ready to settle in for a nice, relaxing flight…until…I discovered the kids from hell were sitting in the seats right behind me.
When I say kids from hell, I’m not exaggerating. For 10 hours, those little monsters kicked the back of my chair and proceeded to poop their diapers and fart incessantly. It was all I could do to keep myself from gagging the entire flight home. And then they would start shrieking at the top of their lungs on this confined aircraft. And what really aggravated me was that their parents did absolutely NOTHING! You’d think any normal parent would see their children behaving like demons, and do something to stop them. Entertain them, punish them, drug them—I don’t care what you do but do something! Those little minions terrorized the people around them the entire awful flight!
3:30PM we finally landed in Miami. I couldn’t have been happier to finally be rid of those children. Only thing was, our connecting flight was scheduled to leave in ten minutes. And we still had to fight our way through immigration, baggage claim, customs and then on top of that we would have to recheck our luggage, and go through security. Again. It dawned on us that there was absolutely no way we would make our connecting flight home.
Plan B. After standing in line for over an hour to get through immigration, then having to wait for our luggage which came out last on the conveyer belt, then having to wait another hour for everybody to get through customs, we were then guided to the line for all the poor saps who had missed their flights. It was a long line. The only other flight we could possibly get on would have been an 11PM departure. Which meant we wouldn’t get home til midnight. But we prayed and held out hope to get on that flight because by this time we were more than ready to be home.
We stood in line for check-in for yet another hour. By the time our group made it to the front of the line, we were overjoyed to hear that the 11PM flight had room for our entire group! The lady at the check-in desk pulled our group out of the line so she could check us in one at a time. Being pulled out of line again should have been a tip-off. But we were optimistic that maybe this time, being pulled out of line would be a good thing. Sure.
The very nice lady who had saved us all seats on that 11PM flight started to help checking us in. She got about three or four people in our group checked when all of a sudden we saw her walk away. She just up and left. We were all standing around fuming. She did not just up and leave us standing here to take a break, now did she?
Oh, yes. She did. By this time we were all so hot-headed and just about ready to cause a very ugly international incident on our own home soil. Here this woman had pulled us out of line to help us, then LEFT US! You have got to be kidding me!
For yet another half hour we waited and waited for this woman to come back. She never did. Finally, one of the guys working at the next check-in booth was kind enough to check the rest of our group in. And mind you, it’s almost 6PM and we still haven’t eaten anything. Pissed off+hungry=not good.
At last we got our baggage checked. All we had to do now was go through security one last time. Then we were free to get some food and relax for 5 hours til our plane came to bring us home. There was a faint light at the end of the tunnel. And at least we would have one more, great story to tell our folks.
Thankfully, we all went through security smoothly and without event. And for our trouble, the airline had given us each $10 food vouchers to use in the airport. Food! Free Food! Finally! Things were definitely starting to look up.
We went on a desperate search for sustenance. And thankfully the airport had lots of options. We used up those vouchers and were delighted to be able to sit, eat, and hang out. A lot of us even got to catch up on some sleep while we waited for our plane.
11PM rolls around, and our plane is on time! And what’s more, there are no babies or young children waiting to board our flight! Whoopee!!! Thankfully, we were able to sleep the whole way home. And the flight couldn’t have been smoother.
We landed on time at the New Orleans airport, and I was ecstatic to see my family waiting for me! It was so good to see them. Everyone’s luggage made it home without getting lost. The icing on the cake.
Unfortunately we were all so excited to be home, we didn’t get to say proper goodbyes. As soon as each person grabbed his or her luggage, we split. I still had an hour long drive back to my house. But it passed quickly as I relayed all the tales of my travels to my family and handed out their souvenirs to them.
And it was fantastic to be able to sleep peacefully in my own bed without any crazy drunks standing outside my window yelling at all hours of the night. But I certainly did miss the beautiful London weather.
Coming home was very bittersweet. It was wonderful seeing my family, but at the same time, I had fallen in love with London and missed it terribly. It had been the best trip! I can’t wait to go back next year.
Til next time,
Cheer Y’all.
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