Feels good to be back in the saddle again! Sort of .
Had a great trip, despite the fact that the
flight over the pond was pretty much a nightmare. We almost missed our connection in London, since Heathrow Airport has such lovely rules that don’t apply anywhere but there. For instance, leaving Tulsa and going through Chicago, we each had a personal item (purse and computer bag), plus our carry-on bags, which is perfectly acceptable anywhere. But not at London Heathrow. “You can only have one bag,” a brusque security woman snapped at us as we entered the checkpoint. “What does that mean?” My husband wanted some clarification. “It means, you can only have one bag.” Very helpful, thank you very much!
Turns out it meant we had to leave the area, go all the way out through passport control, basically through the entire airport (which, if you’ve been there, you know it’s a mess!) check one bag on the flight, and then go back through security. We ran, and barely made our connection.
Once we arrived we had some great days of reconnecting with family, meeting the youngest member for the first time, catching up with the older ones, and on sleep. Takes about a week to adjust to the 7-hour time difference, and as soon as we were feeling fine again, we got sick! Slammed. We took turns staying in bed for a full day each, then making ourselves get up and around. We had places to be, people to see.
I lost my voice. Christmas Eve I walked around whispering to everyone. And Christmas Day we had an 8-hour drive to connect with the Norway part of the family. Which meant wonderful family holiday parties with no sleep (and me still whispering), lots of driving, reuniting with more family members, more driving, some sleep at a hotel, some at various family members’, then some more driving. We were nowhere near well when we left, and with very little rest there was little time to recuperate. I spent the entire first day of the year in bed, and we were considering postponing our return flight, as I wasn’t sure I’d make it.
We ended up leaving as planned, and had a layover in London. Heathrow again. After 45 minutes in the security check line (we were smart enough to only take one bag each this time) we realized we only had 15 minutes before takeoff. Once again, we ran through miles and miles of corridors, and got to the gate, breathlessly, 10 minutes before takeoff. We saw a closed door and an official looking gentleman walking off. I hailed the suit and he very politely and officially explained that he was with Homeland Security in Washington, DC and that new regulations mandate that each international flight bound for the U.S. have to transfer passenger information to them 15 min before takeoff, and then the gate is sealed.
Beautiful! We could see the plane sitting on the ground through the window, it was not scheduled to leave for another 10 minutes, but they wouldn’t let us on. The lady at flight connections told us she was encouraging everyone to write in and
complain to the airport administration, as they are having so many problems with Heathrow security and passengers missing their flights, that people are starting to avoid Heathrow altogether. I believe it! We ended up barely making it going standby on a flight two hours later, and thank goodness, there was no screaming monster child on board this time. We actually made our connection in Chicago, believe it or not, and got in to Tulsa at the original time of arrival.
So, in short, it was a magnificent family vacation!
That saddle thing, sadly, is only a figure of speech. There’s no actual saddle to get back in. I wish there were, though. Perhaps my New Year’s resolution should be to pick back up my old hobby of horseback riding?
