England Day 13 - The end! *sob*
We got up and walked to Woolworth’s down the street from our hotel to pick up our preordered copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, spending the rest of the morning alternating reading and packing. Despite having talked with the front desk about it the day before, at 1 pm - an hour after official check-out time - we got a call asking us when we’d be leaving. So much for talking it out beforehand!
At 1:30 we dragged our luggage out to the curb to pick up a taxi for Paddington. With the heavy weight of the suitcases we just didn’t fancy dragging them back down.
I’d like to say that our last experience pulling away from our hotel and enjoying the afternoon bustle of the city was a pleasant one, but unfortunately our cab driver robbed us of that. For a reason known only to him we were treated to stony silence the entire way even to questions directed to him, and he made it plain that he wanted none of a tip from the likes of us. Stung and a bit put off at the unaccounted for rudeness, we followed the arrows on the floor of Paddington to the Heathrow Express. Note that because Praed Street only runs one way, it’s more of a circuitous route than you’d imagine getting to the station from the hotel.
Note too that even though the train takes only fifteen minutes to run to Terminal 4, to do so it has to be moving ;). We sat at Paddington for at least ten-fifteen minutes before it took off.
Once we arrived at Heathrow we made our way to check-in, which ended up taking a very long time to make our way through. Try over an hour. Twitchy at this point watching the minutes tick away, we wondered how long the security line would be if this was how long it took just for check in, and whether we’d make it to the plane in time.
Finally checked in and relieved of our luggage, we started power marching through the terminal to Security. For some reason mom always gets picked as the security guinea pig, and since I was with her they decided to x-ray me, too. Fun! Security was actually a breeze though, so we again picked up our march to our destination: Gate 22. We noted Gate 21 and assumed that Gate 22 must be right after it, so made a quick stop at a shop for a few last minute gifts for friends before continuing towards what we thought was the gate. *laugh*
It is a well known fact that we cannot take a trip without one of two things occurring:
1. Our flight will be delayed, except in cases where this might actually prove useful to us.
2. Our gate will be the furthest it can possibly be without being in another city altogether.
Gate 22 is not anywhere near Gate 21. Indeed it is not one, but *two* passenger walkways away from Gate 21. Hearing them announce all boarding just as we approached the gate, we continued our power march down the rampway, where we somehow managed to be first in line to enter the plane. Go, us!
Ten minutes of standing on the walkway finally allowed us access to the plane itself, where we took our seats - unfortunately in the middle row, and unfortunately not together.
Having against all odds actually made it to the plane though, it was delayed an additional half hour due to a passenger not arriving at the boarding gate, which meant that his luggage had to be removed from the plane. Finally then…finally we were in the air.
The plane ride back was uneventful. The movie choices were excellent. They ran out of chicken casserole, and thus we had to content ourselves with beef lasagna (starved since it was around 6pm and we hadn’t eaten anything yet the entire day, I would have happily eaten a goat at this point). Included with the lasagna was a tiny salad, chocolate torte with raspberry sauce, a roll, and a twix bar - most lovely. We were amused with the flight attendant offered Alana wine with her meal. We were seated behind a rather hefty family who insisted on reclining their seats as far back as they could possible go, and occasionally sniping at each other. Mom would occasionally stick her hand through the seats to try and make contact with us ;). Harry Potter progressed in his fight against the Dark Lord.
Landing in Philly was the fun it always is. Baggage was delayed by half an hour - as usual. Another half hour was spent waiting for the bus to come pick us up and take us to the car park. Finally, we were nearly home!
Dropped off at the car mom found that her electronic key remote wasn’t working. Hmmm. Then she discovered that the trunk release wouldn’t work. Hmmm. Then she discovered that the power door locks wouldn’t work. Hmmm. Then we discovered that the battery was dead. *Thunk*
Thankfully an extremely nice guy from the car park came out with their van to help jump our car. Unfortunately the car hadn’t been backed into the spot, so we had a bit of fun trying to figure out how to get the car in neutral without it being on, and where the battery itself was. First time I’ve ever pushed a car *beams*. Then I realized that it was going a bit /too/ fast, and whoops, time to stop it before it hit the SUV on the other end!
So it took a while and was a bit more tiresome than it needed to be, but we arrived home. Home, full of happy cats!