Day2: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
August 2 was a travel day. We flew from Los Angeles to London, to an airport different from the one we thought we were headed to when we left the house in the morning. When we arrived at LAX, our boarding passes did not say which gate, since we had checked in so much earlier than the flight. We thought that since we were flying to London, a city outside of the US obviously, we must need to be at the international terminal. We found our way to the shuttle (avoid that during the construction at LAX if you can) only to not be able to find our flight on any of the monitors. Oh no! I went back to the airline’s website, but that wasn’t much help, since they had booked our next leg on their partner’s airline. Multiple scrambles, searches, and questions later, we determined that we needed to take the shuttle back to a different terminal. Neither Maria, Nico, nor I were happy, but we trudged our way back, found our gate, only to see that we had been assigned random seats!
I made my way up through the packed waiting area only to be asked, “Why didn’t you request to be changed seats when you checked in downstairs?”
“Well, we checked in San Jose about 8 hours ago!”
”You should have asked when you checked in downstairs.”
”We were never downstairs and checked in back in San Jose and never looked at these boarding passes until now.”
”I will put in a request, but you should have done so, when you were downstairs.”
I smiled and walked away after being told that the request would take about ten minutes or so. Ten minutes later, I was told to come back in a little. Finally, five minutes before boarding began, I walked up, still with a smile on my face and was told they had two of us together and one immediately behind. “We will make do!”
Luckily, the man assigned to sit next to Maria and Nico was very accommodating and we were able to sit all three of us together. That made it much easier to pray, compare videos, and talk together.
We tried to sleep on the 10 hour flight from Los Angeles to London, but if you’ve ever seen me, you know I’m not small enough to fit easily in a large airplane with limited leg room. My son, Nico, has similar problems, and Maria ended up sitting between the two of us, so also didn’t sleep much.
I made my way up through the packed waiting area only to be asked, “Why didn’t you request to be changed seats when you checked in downstairs?”
“Well, we checked in San Jose about 8 hours ago!”
”You should have asked when you checked in downstairs.”
”We were never downstairs and checked in back in San Jose and never looked at these boarding passes until now.”
”I will put in a request, but you should have done so, when you were downstairs.”
I smiled and walked away after being told that the request would take about ten minutes or so. Ten minutes later, I was told to come back in a little. Finally, five minutes before boarding began, I walked up, still with a smile on my face and was told they had two of us together and one immediately behind. “We will make do!”
Luckily, the man assigned to sit next to Maria and Nico was very accommodating and we were able to sit all three of us together. That made it much easier to pray, compare videos, and talk together.
We tried to sleep on the 10 hour flight from Los Angeles to London, but if you’ve ever seen me, you know I’m not small enough to fit easily in a large airplane with limited leg room. My son, Nico, has similar problems, and Maria ended up sitting between the two of us, so also didn’t sleep much.
After the sleepless night, we finally arrived at Heathrow Airport in London at what to us was almost 8 am, but in reality was almost 4 pm London time. We had just finished breakfast and everyone else was getting ready for dinner. Go figure.
We walked the long walk to the passport check line, the longest that we have faced so far. It felt like going into Disneyland with the winding roped barriers taking us back and forth across the large room.
The agent was very friendly in spite of the long line, asking us if we had been to England before, commenting on how much Nico has changed since his passport photo, and stamping everything right away. She made the long morning and line actually quite pleasant.
We made our way to retrieval of bags (baggage claim), another toilet break (not restrooms in England but toilets), past the trolleys (luggage carts) and the lift (elevator, not the taxi service), and then to the exit.
We needed to make our way to Gatwick airport, since our car hire (rental) company was not able to switch our reservation to Heathrow. That is where our odyssey continued. We hiked through the various passages of the airport to find the actually comprehensive London Underground or Tube, the train and metro system. I was reminded relatively quickly how little I enjoy being in a big city with people, languages, and noises everywhere mixing and crossing together. Google maps helped some to figure out the system, but since we obviously had no idea about the organization of the different routes, it took us a little to know which line, where to transfer, which one to switch to after that. We needed to take one line for a while, switch to another, until finally getting an express train (not metro) to the airport. It was confusing, but we finally ended up at the airport tired, thirsty, and ready to continue.
We walked the long walk to the passport check line, the longest that we have faced so far. It felt like going into Disneyland with the winding roped barriers taking us back and forth across the large room.
The agent was very friendly in spite of the long line, asking us if we had been to England before, commenting on how much Nico has changed since his passport photo, and stamping everything right away. She made the long morning and line actually quite pleasant.
We made our way to retrieval of bags (baggage claim), another toilet break (not restrooms in England but toilets), past the trolleys (luggage carts) and the lift (elevator, not the taxi service), and then to the exit.
We needed to make our way to Gatwick airport, since our car hire (rental) company was not able to switch our reservation to Heathrow. That is where our odyssey continued. We hiked through the various passages of the airport to find the actually comprehensive London Underground or Tube, the train and metro system. I was reminded relatively quickly how little I enjoy being in a big city with people, languages, and noises everywhere mixing and crossing together. Google maps helped some to figure out the system, but since we obviously had no idea about the organization of the different routes, it took us a little to know which line, where to transfer, which one to switch to after that. We needed to take one line for a while, switch to another, until finally getting an express train (not metro) to the airport. It was confusing, but we finally ended up at the airport tired, thirsty, and ready to continue.
Our planes, trains and automobiles adventure continued, as we still needed to find our rental car company. We made our way to the car hire services, only to not be able to find ours. The email I received was had one name, listing another who had still another that would be giving us our vehicle, none of the three onsite at the airport. After some help from an agent from a different company, I was able to read through the voucher I was sent to find that we had to take a shuttle to the offsite location. “Next time try us and you will be out of here quicker,” the agent suggested. He didn’t know how true he truly was.
When the shuttle finally picked us up, it took us to a gated area (“very suspicious” was both Maria and Nico’s comment), we got in line for what should have been a quick process. The company knew that we and all of the others there to pick up vehicles were coming. It is not like any of us got there unexpected. But, the man at the top of the step said that he had already been there for more than 40 minutes and was still a ways from the counter. And then some of the agents left. Any time that a vehicle arrived to leave a vehicle, one of the two went outside to check them in, leaving the long line growing and growing. No one was happy, as we were all traveling from far away expecting that picking up a rental car would/should be relatively painless. Ha!!!!!
After about an hour and a half of waiting in the line, finally another agent came back (she had gone home after a long day) and called me to the counter. At that point, it didn’t take an exhorbitant amount of time, but it was really silly how long it took to get to that point, and no one was happy. Nico and I actually attempted to find another vehicle at a different company, but we finally ended up staying.
When the shuttle finally picked us up, it took us to a gated area (“very suspicious” was both Maria and Nico’s comment), we got in line for what should have been a quick process. The company knew that we and all of the others there to pick up vehicles were coming. It is not like any of us got there unexpected. But, the man at the top of the step said that he had already been there for more than 40 minutes and was still a ways from the counter. And then some of the agents left. Any time that a vehicle arrived to leave a vehicle, one of the two went outside to check them in, leaving the long line growing and growing. No one was happy, as we were all traveling from far away expecting that picking up a rental car would/should be relatively painless. Ha!!!!!
After about an hour and a half of waiting in the line, finally another agent came back (she had gone home after a long day) and called me to the counter. At that point, it didn’t take an exhorbitant amount of time, but it was really silly how long it took to get to that point, and no one was happy. Nico and I actually attempted to find another vehicle at a different company, but we finally ended up staying.
Our final step was driving to the hotel. That wasn’t a bad experience, but it did have it’s drama. I had rented a stick shift (cheaper), but we are in England where people drive on the “wrong side” of the road and of the car. I had driven a stick for years, but it has been a few and I have never had to switch gears with my left hand. The drive out of the gated business park gave me enough practice to figure out shifting again to some extent, but my instincts still had me reaching with my right and not my left hand, and even then, the order is “backwards” to what I am used to since it is left-handed, so first is all the way to the left and not closest to me.
The shifting didn’t end the drama. At the end of the road, I needed to turn left according to Google maps. I trusted “her” to send me in the right way, so I had no problem remembering that the traffic coming up to me on the right side of the road still left me the correct direction on the left, where I was supposed to be here in England. Maria and Nico however, looked left, saw cars coming on the right, and assumed that it was a one-way road going to the right. They both screamed as I turned “into traffic.”
“It’s an empty lane,” I pointed out. “We are fine here on the left.”
They realized after a moment that I was correct, but it definitely caused their heart rate to rise quickly.
We finally arrived at about 10 pm to our hotel at one of the “service” exits off of a freeway. It was a little chaotic trying to figure out how to park at the “food court” lot that was the same as the hotel’s. For those of us in California who are unfamiliar with roadside pitstops with restaurants and gas stations, imagine a mall food court right next to a hotel just off the freeway. You’ll be pretty close.
It is a packed parking lot with trucks and cars everywhere, but only McDonalds and KFC open at the hour we arrived and checked in. So, here we were more than 24 hours after beginning our odyssey, in foreign country, sitting down to eat KFC for dinner. That was definitely NOT what we were expecting, but we were finally eating, drinking, planning the next day, and then going to sleep. It had been an adventure, but the pilgrimage begins tomorrow with, hopefully, a lot less drama. We’ll see.
The shifting didn’t end the drama. At the end of the road, I needed to turn left according to Google maps. I trusted “her” to send me in the right way, so I had no problem remembering that the traffic coming up to me on the right side of the road still left me the correct direction on the left, where I was supposed to be here in England. Maria and Nico however, looked left, saw cars coming on the right, and assumed that it was a one-way road going to the right. They both screamed as I turned “into traffic.”
“It’s an empty lane,” I pointed out. “We are fine here on the left.”
They realized after a moment that I was correct, but it definitely caused their heart rate to rise quickly.
We finally arrived at about 10 pm to our hotel at one of the “service” exits off of a freeway. It was a little chaotic trying to figure out how to park at the “food court” lot that was the same as the hotel’s. For those of us in California who are unfamiliar with roadside pitstops with restaurants and gas stations, imagine a mall food court right next to a hotel just off the freeway. You’ll be pretty close.
It is a packed parking lot with trucks and cars everywhere, but only McDonalds and KFC open at the hour we arrived and checked in. So, here we were more than 24 hours after beginning our odyssey, in foreign country, sitting down to eat KFC for dinner. That was definitely NOT what we were expecting, but we were finally eating, drinking, planning the next day, and then going to sleep. It had been an adventure, but the pilgrimage begins tomorrow with, hopefully, a lot less drama. We’ll see.