**NOTE: Some of the blog below covers information from my previous posting, but I think you will understand why by the end of it. Oh, and this entry is long…**
I am writing this from about 39,000 feet. I am flying back to Dubai, following a short holiday in London with Tami and the Peanut. While never enough, the three days was a welcome respite from work and an indicator that my journey is half way complete. I will be on my way to Chicago in just fifteen days and a wake-up. I have a lot of work to do in the next two weeks.
But, let me tell you about the holiday.
Thursday
I flew to London on a nonstop flight from Dubai International on the Dubai flag carrier, Emirates Airlines. Emirates is widely seen as a premier and luxury carrier and I was excited to have a chance to try it out. Of course it does not hurt that it was a codeshare flight for SkyTeam.
I arrived 3 hours in advance of my flight, as instructed. Check-in took about 20 minutes. Airports are very different outside the United States. Some aspects of the differences are very welcome, others I have a hard time understanding. Anyway, security in Dubai is both stricter and more efficient than that of the US. To get to the check in area, you must place all items through an X-Ray scanner, but do not have to remove shoes or laptops. Once check-in is complete, you head to the customs area for your exit stamp, and then to security for the flight. Once again, I did not need to remove my shoes or laptop. In fact, I walked through the scanner with everything still in my pockets with no worries. Oh, and I had two 32 ounce Nalgene bottles full of water.
In Dubai, the flights are a hike from the main terminal. So, I began the walk (about a 10-15 minute walk) to the gates area. I struck up a conversation on the way with another American. He was a veteran who had served in Iraq as a firefighter, and was now working there as a civilian firefighting contractor. He too was on a short holiday to meet his wife in Europe. He received extra attention (meaning some extra questions) from the security personnel – mainly because he still had his crew cut and military boots.
When I arrived at the gates area, it was like entering a mall on Christmas Eve. Literally thousands of travelers were packed into a duty free shopping area. Here you could purchase goods without duty, but with the increased pricing that is typical of airports. In the end, I think that it is a wash. But, I suppose if people have Dirhams burning a hole in their pocket, this would be the place to buy. I browsed and was tempted to purchase a Sony HandyCam, but only momentarily.
I headed upstairs, grabbed a quarter-pounder and walk to the gate. I had lots of time because I had arrived at 11:45P for 2:50A flight. Now, one of the things that makes little sense to me about foreign airports (Dubai and Gatwick both do this) is that they will not let passengers sit near the gates until an hour before the flight. So, until then, people were camped anywhere they could, mainly clogging the walkways. I sat down on the floor in a corner and read my book (The Pelican Brief) and ate my McDonald’s (the first fast food I have had since I left the States.).
An hour later, they let us pick up and move into the gate area, in preparation for boarding the flight.
I sat next to a guy from Houston who was a Pakistani born, US expatriate who had been in Dubai for 3 months, setting up his company’s Dubai operation. He told his employers that he needed to be in States for a couple of weeks and that that time period needed to include the Super Bowl. The flight was over 7 hours and was brutal on the back. Airbus has these lumbar support seats that are probably really good for those among us that have all of their vertebrae. For me, it was tough so I stood in the rear the plane for an hour or so, when I was not walking around the plane. I think I slept about an hour.
The pilots of our plane were excellent. I say that because, if you saw the international news of this past week, England experienced the strongest wind gusts on the 18th January that they had experienced in almost 20 years. When we came in for a landing, it was the first time I can ever remember praying for a safe landing. Airbus aircraft come with cameras facing forward and downward that can be accessed by passengers. I finally turned mine off because all we could see was cloud cover and all we could feel was jerking up and down and side to side. When I turned the screen back on, I could see the lights of the runway, but we could see nothing outside the window. As we landed, we could tell that the pilot was battling for control of the plane.
When I got off the plane, customs was a breeze. Passport control was fine, though I did receive some questions about what type of “consultant” I am and why was I, an American, coming to the UK from the Middle East. No worries. I headed for the South Terminal to meet Tami. This was the end of the easy part of my journey.
I bought our roundtrip tickets for the Gatwick Express (an express training that runs from London Gatwick airport at Victoria Station, in London) and headed to the international arriving passengers area. As I sat down with the largest coffee I could find and a croissant, I was puzzled by the monitor. Tami’s flight from Orlando was listed as coming in at 8:45A, but the status said “next update 23:59.” When I asked the information desk about this, they were puzzled as well until we found out that her flight had never left Orlando!
I high-tailed it to Starbucks because they have a WiFi hotspot. When I logged on, I received an email from our travel agent (Jeff Swiatek from Sanlando Travel) from the night before stating that Virgin Atlantic had gotten Tami on a flight to Manchester and that they would then be busing her to Gatwick. Her flight was to arrive at 8:06A and she would be at Gatwick 4 hours later. No problem.
I walked down to the Virgin desk and they let me know that her flight had arrived at 8:11A and the bus had left Manchester at 9:25A. She would be here at 2P, as the bus had to stop at Heathrow on its way to Gatwick.
[To give you an idea of what all of this means, this would be like flying to Orlando, being rerouted to Jacksonville and then stopping at Orlando Sanford Airport on the way to Orlando International. Oh, and as for where our hotel was, in this scenario, it would be like staying in Longwood.]
OK, so no problem, it was about 10:30A, and I had until 2PM until Tami would be there. Annoying of course, but no real problems. I headed back up to Starbucks and camped out in a comfy chair to await my wife and The Peanut.
At 1:30P, I rechecked with Virgin, and they said that her bus would be here at 3PM. Back to Starbucks and waiting. Now, for full effect, remember that my flight left at 3AM, so I had now been up for about 33 hours, with just 90 minutes of sleep (60 on the flight and 30 at Starbucks).
At 2:30P, I went to wait for Tami’s bus, out where they were arriving.
At 3:15P, when the bus had not arrived, I went back in to Virgin, to find their desks closed for the day. No one knew where she was. As you can imagine, I was beginning to get scared for her safety (Tami had never traveled internationally, and was had by now been traveling for twelve hours.).
I called Jeff and his people got to work on finding Tami. No one at Virgin knew where the bus was or whether she was on it. He recommended that I get online and wait for an email from him.
I went back to Starbucks and powered on my laptop to find an email from Mom, saying that she had spoken to Tami and that I should call as soon as I got the email. I did. Tami was in Manchester and getting on a train for London. She had called the Kensington Marriott thinking this was where we were staying, but they had no record since we were not staying there. So, we knew she was in country, but not her current whereabouts.
Somewhere in all of this, Tami called Sanlando Travel. She told them where she was and they directed her on how to get to the hotel. They then emailed me and told me that Tami was at the hotel. I got a message to her via Mom that I was on my way.
I took the Gatwick Express to Victoria, then the London Underground to Kilburn Park, then walked about 5 minutes to our hotel (the Marriott London Maida Vale).
Tami met me in the lobby and everything seemed to be right with the world. We ordered room service and crashed. I had been up for about 40 hours, with just 90 minutes sleep.
Flight Update: We are now over Ankara, Turkey, having crossed Europe and the Black Sea. We are going to continue over Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, before getting to the UAE.
We got a late start on Friday, and bought tickets on one of the hop on, hop off bus tours. We also bought tickets for The Tower of London and the London Eye. We took the bus to Marble Arch and caught our tour bus.
We got off the bus at Westminster Abbey and went inside. This really is an amazing church. Over 3,000 people are buried in the church and I have to say it was a bit weird for me to be walking on their graves (most are buried in the floor). They have the tomb of the unknown soldier in the Abbey and that was interesting to see. In the Brits’ case, it is an infantry man from WWI, brought home from France.
We each lit a candle in the church. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I am not a fan of organized religion. (We won’t get into those reasons now.) But as we walked up to the candles, I remembered something that Mom said before I left. She said that Donny would have been envious of this journey because of how much he liked to travel and see people from different cultures. So, I lit a candle for Donny so he could shine on Westminster Abbey for a bit.
From the Abbey, we decided to walk to the London Eye, which is across the river Thames from Big Ben. We got a pancake across the street from Big Ben and I of course could not resist quoting European Vacation, from when the Griswolds are stuck in a traffic circle and Clark repeatedly says “Look kids…Big Ben, Parliament…” Now, the pancakes we got were buttermilk pancakes, very thin and about 14 inches in diameter. You could have all kinds of fillers, from ham and cheese to apples and cinnamon, etc. Tami had apples and cinnamon and I had cinnamon sugar.
We crossed the river on foot and headed for McDonalds. After, we went to the London Eye, which resembles a Ferris wheel, but the “cars” are pods that hold up to 25 people. They are glassed on all sides and on a clear day, one can see up to 25 miles. We got there in time to have the sun setting on us as we looked out over the city. Tami kept remarking that had the people in the car above us worn skirts, we could have seen right up them. Giggity,giggity.
After the Eye, we headed back on to the bus and took that all the way to Trafalgar Square, where we had to get off so that they could switch buses. We chose not to get on the next bus and instead walked around that area of town. We even stopped in at a pub called Waxy’s Little Sister (it was a block from Waxy O’Connors). We told the bartender that we usually drank Newcastle and he found us something close. It was a fun little place, with an upstairs where you could order via Dumb Waiter, if you chose. We finished our pints (OK, I finished a pint and a half) and went back to the hotel.
We had a little excitement on the way back when we could not get into the Underground station we needed. The entire Piccadilly line was shut down because someone had fallen on the tracks. No worries, we walked a little further and headed back to the hotel. No dinner that night, just canapés in the lounge upstairs, followed by rubbing the pregnant lady’s feet.
We did a great job of getting out early on Saturday so we could get to Buckingham Palace and watch the changing of the guard. This was not what I expected. I am not sure what I expected, but it was not all that impressive. I guess it was more pomp and circumstance and some activities that did not necessarily impress me. I would much rather watch a Marine Corps drill team with their show rifles. But, it was fun anyway and we got some good pictures.
After the changing of the guards, we went back on the bus and headed for the Tower of London. We spent a couple of hours at the Tower, which I found fascinating. The fortress dates back to the 11th century and we rented the audio tour and listened to some interesting history.
We got our picture taken with one of the Yeoman Warders. The Warders have guarded the Tower of London for 350 years and just a few weeks ago received into their ranks, the first female member. In order to be a Yeoman Warder, you must be a non-commissioned officer with at least 22 years of service, plus have received medals for good service to Her Majesty’s military.
As we left the Tower, we did a very British thing and had some Ben & Jerry’s, before taking the Underground to Harrods. Let me tell you, it is amazing to me how clean London is, for a city its size. What is even more amazing is the lack of rubbish bins they have available. I carried our Ben & Jerry’s trash for over 40 minutes before we found a trash can (aka rubbish bin).
Harrods is an experience. The store is an entire city block, with five floors and every inch of it is packed like Christmas Eve or perhaps Boxing Day (December 26th). And the people who go there really do force you to be rude in order to stay with your party. I think, if I had it to do over again, I would have gone to Harrods on Friday, instead of Saturday.
Yes, we purchased some items at Harrods. We got the Peanut a Christmas Stocking, and some dark chocolates (those aren’t for the peanut, or at least not directly). We also bought new luggage. I know, it is weird to buy luggage while traveling, but our American Tourister was put out of its misery in London. And hey, they were on sale.
We headed back to the hotel and had some wood fired over pizza in the hotel restaurant. We headed up to the room to pack and rub the pregnant lady’s feet.
We got to the airport without problems this morning and Tami brought me to the security for some smooches before my flight. Good thing we bought the new luggage because I needed the space. British airport security will not let you take more than one carryon. So….some of my carryon items were checked in the new, larger bag.
I am on the plane now, and we are flying over Syria, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon. Jordan and Iraq are next, then the Kingdom (or Saudi Arabia) and UAE. Still have about 2.5 hours to go and about 1300 miles.
I hope Tami’s flight home is uneventful, but won’t know until tomorrow I guess.
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