Since I did not leave until 4:22 p.m. on Thursday I worked that morning. I planned on leaving at noon, but did not end up leaving until 12:30 p.m., which put me a little behind schedule, but not too bad.
When I got home the first thing I did was pack
Here is my pile of things to bring.
Once I got everything in my suitcases and carry on, I kept thinking my suitcase was really empty and that I had done really well not over packing. I even began to think about the back up list and if there was anything I wanted to add. Then I turned around and saw my 4 dresses hanging on the closet.
My dresses.
That would explain why the suitcases were so empty. Once those got added my suitcases were not so empty.
Because I was so on top of things, I actually had time to do all that stuff I try to do before I leave, but never have time to do. Stuff like change my bedding, clean out my fridge, unplugged appliances….. For the first time, I think ever, I felt really good when I walked out the door about how I was leaving things.
My sister and brother in law were going to use my car while I was gone. My brother in law works right around the corner from the airport, so I was going to drive to his office and he would drop me off at the airport and take my car. I love flying out of Grand Rapids, the airport is small enough that you can show up just an hour a head of time and have no problems making your flight. (In fact I have been known to show up about 45 minutes before a flight.) But because this was the first leg of an international flight I wanted to get there a little bit earlier. I left home about 2:45 p.m. and got to the airport just after 3:00.
The last time I flew out of Grand Rapids the construction on the new parking ramp was still under construction. Now it was almost done and I have to say, it looks great. It makes the Gerald R Ford Airport look like a real airport. I am so excited. Here is a picture of it.
As I got up to the counter I tried to check in at the kiosk as usual, but it would not let me, great I thought. The man behind the counter came over to help and he noticed there was a flag on my ticket because I only had an hour and twenty minutes in Philadelphia between flights and they prefer you have 1 ½ hours to make sure your luggage gets on your plane. So I had to acknowledge that I was aware of the fact that my luggage may not make it. I basically said I did not have any other choice so I was going to hope for the best. Speaking of my luggage, while international flights do not have a luggage charge, they still have the 50 lb weight limit. My checked suitcase weighed in at 49.9 lbs. Talk about just making it. I also checked what my carry on weighed, which was just over 20 lbs, which was fine for these flights, but could be an issue on some of the other flights. Once we got past that there was another issue. I was flying from Grand Rapids to Chicago and then Chicago to Philly on United, and then taking U.S. Air from Philly to London. Even though they are partner airlines for some reason they could not print my boarding pass for my last flight. Great I thought, I am already short on time in Philly and now have to deal with getting a boarding pass there. Once I got passed all these issues, I was able to check in. I had renewed my passport over the summer and this was my first trip with it. I have to say, I am quite happy with my passport picture. Here it is…
Once I was checked in, I easily went through security and got to the gate. I talked to Shannon for a while who was also at the airport in Orlando. My flights were not ideal, I would have been much nicer to fly directly from Chicago to London, but the extra stop was worth it because Shannon and I were on the trans-Atlantic flights together. I told Shan about the whole boarding pass issues and since she was getting to Philly first, if she would make sure everything was okay and our seats were still together.
The 28 minute flight from GR to Chicago was uneventful. I dozed during the flight, like I normally do. We landed in O’hare a bit a head of schedule and I had about two hours before my next flight. I grabbed some dinner and made phone calls since I knew I would be unable to use my phone for almost 3 weeks. The flight from Chicago to Philly was also uneventful. I purposely did not sleep on this flight so that I would sleep more on the over night. We took off from Chicago around 6:10 p.m. their time (7:10 p.m. EST) and actually landed early, around 9:00 p.m. As soon as we were on the ground I called Shannon who was already at the gate. I asked her where I needed to go and if she had talked to the person at the counter. She had and everything was fine. She did say it was a long walk to our gate so be prepared. I was happy that I had gained 20 minutes on my layover so hopefully my luggage would make it. After I got off the plane, I started my trek, and called my family one last time before I left the continent. I finally made it over to the international terminal and found Shannon. It was so good to see her. It had been over a year since we said good bye in Seattle after our Alaskan adventure.
I had her watch my stuff while I went and got my boarding pass and talked to her Mom on the phone for a bit. (Shannon’s mom, Maggie, is like a second mother to me.) They then started boarding the plane. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:40 p.m.
I have never flown with Shannon before and while I knew she did not like to fly, I didn’t realize how much she did not like to fly. She likes to be the last person on the plane, I prefer to get on as soon as possible to get all settled in (and half the time fall asleep before we take off). She also has to touch the plane as she is walking on and made me do the same. I was kind of laughing at her. I have no fear of flying and actually like it when it is a little turbulent.
When we got to our seats we found noticed there was some real interesting people around us. There was this large (both in size and number) Norwegian family in the middle section by us who were arguing with each other. The family included a couple teen age boys who were quite taken with Rubik Cubes. Three ladies going to the UK took this picture of us, as we were getting ready to leave.
Soon after we took off they served us dinner. It had been a long time since I had airplane food served on a flight. It was a nice change. Of course when the announcement came over that dinner featured pasta with both alfredo and a red sauce, it started our funny quotes/events for the trip. Here is the pasta...
After dinner, they dimmed the cabin lights so that people could sleep. I did okay sleeping, never got into a really deep sleep, but got a fair amount. Shannon did not sleep hardly at all. Our flight was supposed to be about 7 ½ hours. But about 5 ½ hours into the flight the lights came back up and the pilot announced we had a very strong tail wind and would be arriving in London about an hour early. That was great – more time in London! During the last hour of the flight I was watching out the window and enjoyed seeing the English landscape. I even saw a amusement park from the sky. It felt like we were going pretty slowly the last 30 minutes or so, we probably were waiting to get cleared to land. So we ended up landing about a half an hour early – 10:30 a.m. London time, 5:30 a.m. EST. But we were here and our adventure was about to begin….
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