Transit

Starting from the start… The first flight was on United 981 from Boston Logan to Washington Dulles. The plane was an Airbus A319A. The flight had some bumpy spots but overall went well. I left Boston at about 3pm and arrived in Washington at about 4:45 including the gigantic wait in taxi to find a terminal to deplane. All said and done, by the time I was off the plane the posting for United flight 920 from Dulles to London Heathrow was already posted on the departure screens, so I made my way to the gate quickly, stopping at a shop to pick up a white chocolate Kit Kat which I ate pretty quickly. The wait wasn’t really that long until we were boarding the flight.

I was originally assigned to seat 25A but because the person scheduled to sit next to me was from a family of 4 with two young children I agreed to move a couple rows back from the window seat to an aisle seat next to her husband so she could have one of her children sit next to her. The switch was actually advantageous because the seat I was assigned had some sort of electrical box at my feet and the move to an aisle seat freed that up and gave me actual foot room. The flight didn’t depart on time because there were a lot of seating change requests. Mine went under the radar to the service personnel.

The interesting side notes to boarding. Number one: I really on received a security check at Boston in the sense that I could have entered the plane with a gigantic carry-on even though United was supposed to have a limitation on the size of carry-ons to the UK. That said, I am a teeny bit miffed I didn’t bring my backpack but I’ll live. I did get the random TSA security check at Dulles. The checks were purely determined by how long it took them to go through a person’s bags. I was done quickly. The lady with the oversized bag before me took a lot longer. Two: and this is the really awesome note: during all flights at this point there is a rules that states no liquids whatsoever may be taken on the flight. Right after I finished my random security check I entered the ramp behind a Caucasian couple in their 50s or so. The male had a bottle of water sitting right on top of his carry on bag. I blurted out, “How did you get that in there?” The guy said he was intending on throwing it out before he got to board but forgot about it. No one else noticed it. He left it in the ramp. Security….

In any event, whether I’m a flyer who defies his fear of the process or not, the flight to Heathrow was basically uneventful. I didn’t sleep as well as I’d hoped, even taking some Nyquil caplets, but such is life I guess. There weren’t many bumps. The pot roast dinner wasn’t horrible and we arrived on time.

I was beginning to believe my curse (which states that whenever Tom tries to go somewhere there will be inevitable delays) was going to be avoided when I found in boarding the Heathrow express to Paddington that there was a fire alarm status in one or the tunnels the train had to go through and that there would be a delay of indeterminate time. It ended up being about 20 minutes or so. I’m glad to see I can bring down foreign transit systems as well as local ones. I took a cab to my hotel: The Jurys Inn Chelsea. It’s on the Thames but a significant distance away from anything major in London.

I arrived at the Jurys at about 8am. A very nice woman helped me put my larger suitcase on in a backroom because their normal check-in time is about 2pm and they had no rooms available. I then left the place carrying my laptop bag which had maybe 20 pounds worth of gear in it, including my laptop and camera.