Called our mini-cab buddy the next am when I got up 6:30 local time (2:30am eastern) Peter got up just after me – we grabbed everything and ran down stairs, checked out and took off towards the 2nd barrier like usual. I videotaped the entire cab ride to the airport about 30 minutes – not too bad for 23 pounds.
We got to the airport around 8am – took us a while to find the right terminal since things are very clearly marked. The check-in luggage line was packed – we had to queue on the opposite side of the aisle to wait to be called to the main line. The girl at the check-in station said this was the busiest they’ve been since Christmas – go figure. We got through and got our VAT (some money from our spending) back. Then decided to spend the rest of my £ since the exchange rate there was terrible.
We went to a sit down breakfast about 9 (flight isn’t until 1030) we ate for a while – 945 then grabbed some stuff and ran toward the flight – They paged us at 10 – “last call for party of Lancaster”. Evidently they were trying to leave early and we were the only people not on the plane – they had to reopen the cabin for us to get in (they were pissed at us but I was annoyed they are trying to leave us early…)
Continental 757 was awesome – little smaller than our 777 on the way to London but they had tons of free movies/tv/music on the screens on the way back. We had time to watch 3½ movies…we were very dorky and started Harry Potter Half Blood Prince at the same time and essentially watched it together. Then we watched the Deathly Hallows pt1 together as well since we had just seen all of London it made the movie more fun. I made Peter watch Slumdog Millionaire and part of The Hurt Locker while I watched the Percy Jackson and part of Tangled in Spanish. – LANDING IN NEWARK WAS A FIASCO
We got off the plane fine and took off to customs - the line took a while to get through but they were efficient and polite enough. The guy didn’t believe that we were related, just thought we were traveling together as friends. We had to show him our passports to convince him. We got through – had to claim our luggage, then put some stuff in our carry-on or checked bag to make room and had to go and re-check it in. Then the trouble started.
We got to the main terminal – caught the train to the C terminal and tried to figure out what line to get in (about 5 directions to choose from and lines everywhere but no signs). We asked one guy he says go back the other way, when we get there they sent us back again, the same first guy then sends us up the stairs, and the woman up there told us to go back down….I found a self-check in kiosk and just did everything there then headed the ONE direction no one sent us in. I got flagged for ‘extra security’ woohoo. Sadly I got patted down, had all my electronics wiped down, and had my bag thoroughly searched and STILL beat Peter through security by about 10 minutes. After this we finally made it to our terminal C96, well our plane was moved to some other terminal suddenly, C30 – across the building. We stopped to eat – got some pizza and drinks before our last flight. Our terminal was supposed to be for a separate flight to Milan boarding at the same time and didn't bother to tell any of those passengers so we had about half of our line sprint away last minute since they weren’t notified until they tried to board the wrong plane.
In the meantime we had a pigeon hopping around the terminal and no one looked twice at it – either it was something only Peter and I could see or it was such a common occurrence that no one else seemed to care. We then sat on the plane for a few minutes and the pilot reassured us that we were about to taxi off and leave right on time (6:20) we then waited in the plane smelling exhaust for about 15 minutes, then they ventilated the plane and we sat for another 20, we finally ‘short’ taxied out to only wait in line for another 20…the flight over was short though – I only got to watch about an hour of Iron Man 2 and peter read some of his book before we landed. Getting our luggage and to our car from that point was a piece of cake – it was funny to notice the difference in people since I had been out of the south for so long(Philadelphia then Boston for a week then London for a week). I never noticed how slowly people walked or in general how much fatter people are until I got back (people also asked much dumber questions in general – but then again people in London didn’t really talk to you without a legitimate reason).
I dropped Peter off around 10 or so then took off for Atlanta. I didn't get in until almost 2 which by my math means I was up for only about 24 hours solid. I don't think I recovered from my lack of sleep until the end of that week.
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