24 Hours in London and Airport Hell

(This is a continuation of Never Fly Iberia) The next day Kurt and I got up and arrived at the airport one hour earlier. After going through the same line that I should have easily passed the previous day I hugged and said good-bye to Kurt, and went to the what should have been the security area. There were five security people all huddled around a baggage screen machine that wasn’t even turned on. None of them so much as looked at me and I walked around the metal detector frame, which also wasn’t on, and went right past them without incident. I arrived at my gate five minutes after receiving my boarding pass, and I was walking very slowly.

After arriving in Heathrow I meandered to the baggage area and then found my way to the main terminal where I went to the information desk to ask which terminal I would be leaving from and where I could go to get a hotel. In the swelter in dungeon of Heathrow there is an entrance to the tube and some very helpful people that arraigned a hotel room for me and showed me how the tube system works, or rather doesn’t work in their opinion. As some one who comes from an area with a mass transit system that doesn’t go anywhere useful and never gets you there faster than you could driving in second gear I found the tubes to be simply amazing. So I hopped on the tube, after getting directions to my hotel of course. They told me which tube to take and where to transfer then said that the hotel was just across the street.

I got out of the station and saw….no hotel!!!! There was just a park, and it’s the hottest June day London has had in like 5000 years. So I’m carting two bags and a backpack with the word “tourist” written all over me in ink only visible to the whole fucking world. I ask someone to help me with the address and he points in one direction. I go two blocks and ask another person they send me in the opposite direction. I go another two blocks, then I ask someone else they keep me in the same direction but I go just a bit further. I found some other tourists that actually have a map and check with them, but my street wasn’t list on their maps, so I ask another guy and he sends me out a few more blocks. I find a hotel…it’s not the right one, but they give me actual directions and I finally after an hour and a half make it to the hotel, by that time I was so sweaty I could wring my bra out. Sexy huh? So then I took a shower and went down to the lobby to find some touristy stuff to do. I got a ticket for the big red tour bus and took lots of pictures from it. On part of the tour we go by Parliament and there were some protesters so I got off and showed them my “I didn’t vote for Bush” bracelet and chatted with them. I took a bunch of pictures of their posters… “bring our children home”. One poster had a silhouette of a man holding a gas pump nozzle to his head, and there were many Bush posters with dubya sporting a Hitler mustache.

By the way I was writing this in a chat room so I’m just going to insert the chatter where it fits…

Elladan: I loved seeing that debate from Britain, where people actually called Tony Blair a lying asshole.

mercurial: Isn’t that funny? Citizens of other countries protest our president. How often do you see Americans staging a demonstration against Chirac, for example?

ME: mercurial, most Americans STILL don’t know who Chirac is but they know they aren’t FRENCH fries anymore
mercurial: hehehehe
mercurial: It’s funny ’cause it’s true. But it’s also sad ’cause it’s true.

I had fun in London The next day went to catch my plane to San Fran…I got up at five am (couldn’t sleep anymore). I stayed in the room till 6:45 then went down for breakfast. It was a complementary breakfast. For 80 pounds it’s hardly complementary but I let them get away with it anyway. I ate and left quickly to catch my “tube”. I made it back to Heathrow and waited in line forever. I was all checked an hour before my flight, which means my gate number was posted on the screen, so I went to the gate cause I’m not going to tempt myself at an airport store. Gate 56 at terminal 1. Soon after arriving at said gate in said terminal…over the speaker comes this voice…oddly it had a British accent. He said that the plane had mechanical problems and to please go to gate 52 so that we may board a different plane that will be at that gate soon. Twenty minutes later that voice came on again….please go to gate 30. We actually had to go through security AGAIN to get to gate 30. 20 minutes later… could you please LEAVE gate 30 we have vouchers for you at the BA lounge to buy lunch. We had to go through security to LEAVE gate 30, so I get my free food (5 pounds worth), and all of us passengers are all becoming fast friends. One guy starts chatting with me and is incredibly interested in everything I have to say until the word boyfriend came up on my end of the conversation

mercurial: hahaha
mercurial: Of course.
Elladan: lol
Antacid: Erica, that’s why i stopped talking to you too
ME: Antacid, LOL

So after a bit…a long bit…we’re directed back to gate 30…and we wait…and wait

mercurial: So back through security to get there?
ME: nope not this time…
ME: this time they ask if we’re the San Fran group
ME: by now they kinda know us
ME: hehehe
Elladan: hah
mercurial: Lovely.
ME: after about three and a half hours of delay they announce that we may begin boarding and the whole crowd cheers and claps (I’m not kidding)
ME: people that were not on our flight were looking at us all weird
ME: and the security people were just laughing at us or for us

So then I was seated next to the biggest lush EVER. The lush on my flight had two bottles of wine and at least three double shots in a ten hour span plus using his 5 pounds at the bar. He was a nice guy but I was getting tired of having to get up to let him go pee all the time

mercurial: Erica, Maybe you should’ve traded seats with him.
ME: I was the middle seat
ME: then he would have slept leaning on me or the other guy
mercurial: Ugh. Middle seat.
ME: yeah it sucks

I landed in San Fran… I was supposed to have had a five hour layover

mercurial: But…?
ME: but my flight from London was uumm delayed
mercurial: Right.
mercurial: We heard. *smile*
ME: hehehe
ME: I filled out my how much money do you have card to get into the states and walked to the baggage thing so that I could join in the customs crap
ME: my bag being one of the last ones to show up on the belt
ME: I grab it and wander in the general direction of connecting flights
ME: I had to actually get my ticket from
ME: Alaska Air and have them recheck my bag…again
ME: and then go through security AGAIN
ME: this time…I was one of the lucky chosen ones
ME: and I got the special search
Elladan: oh great
mercurial: hahaha Oh, that’s horrible!
mercurial: I’ve never had to have the special search… not even when I left the secure area to meet my parents in baggage claim in Memphis and finding out upon re-entry that it was 100% special search for a heightened security drill.
ME: btw all of my dirty clothes are in my carry on
mercurial: hehehe
mercurial: Lovely.
* wasme: looks up … ’special search’?
ME: where they take the wand over you and dig through all your bags
ME: you have to take your shoes off and stand with arms out and palms up
Elladan: Erica, So, did you make your plane?
ME: yeah that one was a little late too