Friday, July 17, 2009

Home again

It's very unreal to be home again, although still nice, in a way, since the journey to get here was literally about 23 hours long and spanned three countries and currencies before we got home. It was quite the festive experience getting back to FL, and I can now say from experience that given the option, do not travel through multiple countries on the way back to the U.S. and that direct flights cut back on travel stress. Our Paris to London to NJ to FL journey was a study in modes of transportation and interesting signage, to say the least, and it was a nice relief to collect my suitcase at baggage claim A in Orlando and finally complete the last leg of our transatlantic journey...

My return voyage began with an early breakfast at the Campanile: i.e. one last chance to enjoy their croissants and the fun drink machine that made multiple hot beverages, including good hot chocolate that was super sweet in the end. Around 8 am Paris time, we (Robin, Laurie, and I) got a taxi to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London. Even though Laurie wasn't on the same train as us, it was really nice of her to share a cab and one last memory of Paris since I'd never ridden in a car or taxi there. (Thanks again, Laurie!) Nonetheless, we made it the train station with time to spare, although the postings for admittance to the Eurostar check-in were apparently time suggestions only since people leaving on the 9:13 train were trickling in around 9 expecting to board and our train, the 10:13 to London St. Pancras, started check-ins practically at 9 as well. At any rate, we made it on the train, even though we were seated practically at opposite ends of the train, and, as is my usual special skill when traveling solo, I got a random seatmate who acted as though I'd inconvenienced him by showing up and claiming my seat. Nevermind the fact that basically the rest of our coach was completely empty except for this wacky family seated directly in front of me did provide some unusual, if unintended, entertainment for the rest of us passengers.

The train trip seemed shorter somehow heading back to London than when we rode the same trip to Paris, but at least my seatmate moved and thus, it was a quiet experience; I even had a window seat that actually had a window (unlike the trip down to Paris, when Sheila and I had the row with the faux window seat), so there were some picture opportunities. :) Unfortunately, once the train arrived in London, we had to figure out a way to get from St. Pancras to London Paddington, where we would be able to catch the Heathrow Express to the airport. Having never wrangled luggage on the tube in London, I wasn't overly anxious to attempt that, but at the same time, the underground is the fastest, cheapest means of getting there, so we topped up our Oyster cards enough to make the trip and caught the Victoria line to the Circle to get to Paddington. The subway was strangely empty for it being mid-day (I suppose I expected lunch traffic or something), but we made it to Paddington and, after buying our Heathrow Express tickets, got to experience a different kind of train ride out to Heathrow.

Unfortunately, neither of us thought of or knew to check which of the five terminals our return flight airline operates out of at Heathrow, so we took a chance and got off early at Terminals 1, 2, 3, hoping for some signage direction to where we could check in and ditch our heavy luggage. There are no signs explaining what airlines are at what terminals, though, and so we again guessed and followed the crowd towards terminals 2 and 3, which were paired together on the signage for the first three floors up and then magically became terminals 1 and 2. Thankfully, at terminal 2, where there was an underground connection option (I didn't know about this or we might've skipped the Heathrow Express leg of our journey altogether), there was a huge schedule of what airlines were located in each terminal. Here, we discovered that our flight left out of terminal 4, which wouldn't be an issue except that only terminals 1-3 share the building we were currently in and thus we would have to catch the free shuttle service train out to terminal 4. This meant carting our luggage back down three long hallways and three stories to where we got off our Heathrow Express initially. Sad times.

On the plus side, the shuttle train to terminal 4 is free if you've purchased the ticket out to Heathrow at all, so we just walked down and got on the next train out, which was conveniently waiting and ready to go shortly after we boarded. Once in terminal 4, it was pretty easy, actually, to check in for our flight and check our luggage, which only left security (which included a nice pat down from the female guard for everyone who walked through the metal detector carrying his/her passport because the passports triggered the metal detector). There were no announcements at the gate about boarding, so we thankfully happened to be paying attention when they were getting to the end of general boarding because you couldn't hear the guy at the gate telling what rows were boarding and the sign for our flight kept changing status from "open" to "boarding" to "closing," which was a little odd. I narrowly (by one person) escaped being the person chosen at random for the bag and body search pre-boarding, so that was a nice relief, and even though I sat next to vector Vicky for the whole 7+ hour flight, it was a pleasant stretch of the journey.

Once we landed in Newark, we had to go through passport checks, claim our luggage, go through customs, and then recheck our bags...or so we thought. The whole passport check process was a breeze compared to our two-hour wait at Gatwick, and even though the luggage was incredibly slow to ever arrive, there were no issues with collecting it, going through customs, and rechecking the bags. After those steps were completed, we expected to follow the signs for connecting flights and end up back in a terminal, from which we could locate our gate or transfer to another terminal. We did follow the signs, and they eventually, after three floors, led us to a security check, where we had to get in line and be rechecked along with all of the other domestic travel passengers who hadn't yet been on a plane that day. It seemed odd to have to go through security for a second time, but at least we knew not to hold our passports as we walked through the metal detectors and magically, we didn't have any issues the second time around. :)

It was another crazy long hike (a la Gatwick) to get to our gate despite the fact that we were in the right terminal to begin with and went through the central security checkpoint instead of one of the peripheral ones. We did make it to the gate with about thirty minutes to spare, but they began boarding super early (just like at Heathrow), so we basically sat for maybe ten minutes before we were back on another plane headed for home. Both planes were like refridgerators, so despite the 90-degree temperatures outside, I opted for a sweatshirt while other passengers wrangled for multiple blankets on the plane. Unlike our transatlantic flight, the NJ-FL one was pretty empty, and to help with weight balances, I volunteered myself and Robin to move up from our row towards the front of the plane, which was nice since the row where we relocated had way more leg room. :) Our tickets said our flight took over three hours, but on the plane they kept insisting it was 2 hrs. 18 minutes (I mean insisting...intercom lady had to have said it at least three times and then came on one last time to say "Two hours as in counting up from one, one, two hours and eighteen minutes"); I suppose other passengers hadn't believed her before, but in the end, we only arrived twenty minutes early, so someone's calculations were still wrong.

Thankfully, unlike in NJ, we waited literally only ten minutes for our luggage to appear, which was a nice surprise after a long day of traveling. We got to leave the airport at 12:15, which would be 6:15 am Paris time, which means our trip was basically 22 hours. Of course, home is a good hour from the airport, so in the end, it was a 23 hour journey home, but it was quite the experience and, I think, a fitting conclusion for my trip of a lifetime. :)

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