Here are a couple pictures from our last day in the UK. The first is Lynne hanging out with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn at Hampton Court Palace. The second is Lynne enjoying a pint at a pub in London.
So last Friday we flew from Heathrow to Chicago and then we were to fly from Chicago to Kansas City and arrive about 6:30 p.m. We were all excited about getting home, picking up our dogs and sleeping in our own beds. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that night.
Our flight was only about 10-15 minutes late but customs and immigration killed us. United told us before we got off the plane they would help expedite us through so we'd make our connection. A woman told us to go to lanes 37 and 38. We stood there about 20 minutes and were at the front about to go next to the immigration officer ...
And then a guard told us we couldn't be in that line without a special pass. After some arguing, they put us back of the HUGE long line of U.S. people. It had to be 150-200 people ahead of us. We were so incredibly frustrated. #*$! United! Lynn got put in a faster line and I got trapped with a very thorough officer who asked everyone their life story. So Lynne pulled all of our luggage off the belt and onto carts before I finished. That Lynne is strong! Then she got hassled by customs about her ginormous equipment case and a missing form that no one told us we had to have three weeks ago when we'd left the U.S. Got through that and starting moving again and were told before we could recheck our bags that there was no way we'd make our flight to KC, which was in a different terminal and was supposed to leave in 15 minutes. I almost cried.
There were a couple other flights that would have left after 8 or 10 p.m. but they were overbooked and the agent didn't think we'd get on with standby. So we ended up staying the night in Chicago. United put us up and gave us some food vouchers. It took us a while to calm down and give in that there was nothing we could do about it. I had to call the car service and Bella's vet to reschedule and Bethany to tell her I couldn't get Bella that night (she and her parents had already graciously said they could keep Bella that night if I was too tired to get her). Then called family letting them know we couldn't meet Saturday morning. I fell asleep about 8 p.m. (1 a.m. London time), got up really early and we headed back to the airport. We actually made it in to KC a little early. But ... Lynne's camera equipment didn't make it. Figures. It was delivered later that day.
If you'll recall on one of my first blogs we decided, thanks to Jonathan Mast, that our safe word when we were driving each other crazy was "pickles." We never invoked it on each other (Lynne's a terrific travel buddy), but we did use it with Air France and United. Along with a few other choice words.
4 countries. 6 cities. 17 interviews. 11flights. 70+ hours flying. 2 = times camera equipment didn't make it. 0 cases of bed bugs. 40 = number hours it will take to do my expense report.
It's good to be home.
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