Home, Sweet Home

"Looks like we made it!" Barry Manilow is singing in my mind as I've now made it from Edinburgh to London Heathrow to Newark to Los Angeles. I came very close to not making it past Newark, a tale which I'll share in a moment.

They say "breaking up is hard to do," but WAKING up is even harder when the alarm clock beeps at 4 am and you know you'll be traveling 20 hours in three airports all across the globe. It's one of those things you have to gear up for because the prospect of flying, sitting, then running from gate to gate is daunting.

I began my journey at 4:30 am on Wednesday, July 2 as Megan walked with me to Waverly Station in Edinburgh in order to catch the Airlink bus to the airport for my 6:30 am departure on bmi. After such a wonderful trip with only one major snafu (The Fiat Hits The Castle), it was sad saying goodbye to my travel buddy. We got along splendidly and proved to be fitting travel companions all across Europe. I jumped on the shuttle and made it to EDI promptly at 5:30 am.

Already having printed my boarding pass, I proceeded to the gate to wait for my flight to depart. Unfortunately, passport-checking-nerdy Scottish guy decided to tell me I'd need to check in my trusty blue suitcase because it was too big to fit in the overhead bin. No, no, no...Don't tell me my bag doesn't fit! I've traveled 5,000 miles on like 17 different flights with this thing -- it fits. He made me shove it into a metal container to prove my point, so I had to rearrange some stuff in order for the whiskey-swilling, haggis-eating little man to be satisfied. It took a lot of shoving and brute strength, but it made it! That'll teach him...

My flight to London Heathrow was fine, but the one from London to Newark was delayed by about an hour and a half because the flight crew was stuck in London traffic on the M4 highway. Once I finally boarded, I was thrilled that I had an entire row to myself towards the front of the plane! Not only was I able to pretty much fully extend my 4'11" frame across the three seats, but I also was able to watch movies and TV on the little monitor on the back of the seat in front of me.

Those who know me well know that I like The West Wing. Ok, so I *love* it. Obsession wouldn't be too much of a stretch. Wouldn't you know they had two episodes that I could watch for free during the flight!?! And THEN I watched Pride & Prejudice! Well, that flight couldn't have gone better...that is, until we arrived an hour and ten minutes late into Newark.

We landed at 2:20 and my next flight, my last flight, was scheduled to depart Newark at 3:25 pm. After standing in line for 20 minutes in Customs, I learned that I was in Terminal B and had to take a shuttle to Terminal C. I remained calm (sort of) until I arrived at the security line at Terminal C. There were no less than 70 people in the "regular" line, so I went to the Elite line and talked to the non-English speaking security guy about possibly missing my flight. He was not concerned with me but allowed me to get into the shorter line. By this point it was 3 pm, so my flight was scheduled to leave in 25 minutes.

Now is a fine time to say: I love Jewish mothers. I work with them on a daily basis, and I (mostly) love them in general, but this one woman in the security line sealed the deal. She'd overheard that I was about to miss my flight, so she yells to all the people in line in her thick New York accent to "let the poor girl go!" (She droned on about some other stuff, basically reprimanding the people in line giving me dirty looks, but I was too busy trying to fish out my bag of liquids and take off my shoes to pay attention to how this woman was defending me.) So I cut in front of everyone in order to slide my little blue suitcase onto the conveyor belt. Thank you, lady, whoever you are!

I literally sprinted about 300 yards to my gate at the end of the terminal. I should note that I was wearing a little dress, flip flops and my butt was (and is) still sore from falling down the steps in Montalcino. (My left butt cheek looks like a band of thunderstorms on a black and white radar display on The Weather Channel.) By the time I made it on board, sweat was trickling down my face and my back. Not exactly a picture of freshness, but I was on the damn plane headed to Los Angeles!

The rest is pretty much a blur as I dozed on and off in my window seat on a very full plane. I think I was sleepwalking when I finally got off five hours later, but my friend Christine was there to fetch me from LAX and deliver me safely to my condo. (Thanks, friend!)

I'm quite surprised that the two jars of honey that I purchased in Montalcino made it through ten kinds of security in my carry-on bag, but it's here with me along with the rest of my purchases. I don't have enough quarters to do laundry right now, so I'll go to the bank, do laundry, pay bills, go to work for a little while, then pack for my flight home to New Orleans TOMORROW morning! That's right, I'm flying again in 24 hours, but it'll be a joy to be with my family.

As Megan said, thank you all for keeping up with us through this blog. It was a ton of fun posting, and I encourage anyone who's taking a trip to create one. Thanks for reading, my dear friends!