The Journey's End

Early Saturday morning I woke up and headed to the Victoria Coach station. I had purchased a ticket for the 8 am coach to London Heathrow Airport. When my coach arrived I was very sad to leave. As I made my last journey driving through the city, it was hard to see all the buildings pass me by. When the coach reached Heathrow, I was dropped off at the coach station. After walking around a bit and reading a few signs, I finally found the lift to take me to the Express Train to reach my appropriate terminal. By this point I was rather exhausted from hauling my suitcase and two over-sized, overweight carry-on bags. I wanted nothing more than to hire a personal assistant to save me the hassle of hauling my junk, but I carried on about my business all by myself. It was just after 9 am when I arrived at the Delta ticket counter, but much to my dismay there was already an insanely long line. I printed my boarding pass from the self-check in kiosk and unfortunately still had to wait in line to drop off my bag. After waiting for about 30 minutes, what seemed like hours, I made my way to security. Like usual, the scanner beeped when I walked through and I had to undergo the embarrassing wand check. I'm not sure whether its my jewelry or bad luck, but I can't seem to pass through a metal detector without sounding the alarm. Little did I know, sounding the buzzer was soon going to feel like a minute problem. As I waited by the conveyor belt for my items to come through the tunnel, a woman came and stood next to me to wait for her items. Not a minute later both bags and the bin with my laptop came out of the tunnel. I immediately began to grab my items and my not-so-friendly neighbor lady grabbed my laptop. I could not believe my eyes and quickly put my bags down to take my computer from the woman. At the same time as I began to loudly say, "Umm excuse me THAT IS MINE," the security officer came over to the woman to inform her that some of her items had not properly passed the security inspection. Luckily, my less than desirable neighbor lady let go of my laptop and walked away with the security officer. I hate to jump to conclusions, maybe the woman thought the computer belonged to her travel partner, her son, but I was not about to wait around for the woman to realize her mistake. I was nervous that this incident would set the tone for the rest of the day's events. Luckily, as soon as I boarded my flight everything seemed to get better. The most exciting event of the day happened shortly after I sat down on the plane. As Katie and I sat next to the right wing minding our own business, a flight attendant approached us with a very interesting opportunity. He quickly asked us if the two of us would like to see the cockpit. We eagerly said yes and headed to the front of the plane. When we arrived at the cockpit the flight attendant introduced us to all three pilots and let us step inside. The pilots couldn't have been more friendly and were eager to tell us all about the space. They let each of us sit in the front seat and take a picture wearing the captain's hat. It was a really awesome experience getting to see a space that not many are allowed in. I still do not know what provoked the flight attendant to approach Katie and me, but whatever it was I am glad that he did. The remainder of the flight to Atlanta was uneventful but relaxing. Arriving at Atlanta and going through customs went quite smoothly as well. As the time grew near for my flight to leave for St. Louis, the departure time began to be pushed back later and later. After a delay of over an hour my flight finally left for St. Louis. I was able to take a short snooze on the flight before landing in St. Louis around midnight.

Since my arrival back in the States, I have enjoyed a few things that I have not had during the last three weeks. Air conditioning, a dishwasher and strong water pressure in the shower are just a few things that I missed. That being said, I survived just fine in London without these details and didn't really even know that I missed them until I was exposed to them again. During the last three days I have been trying to adjust to the six hour time difference, spend time with my family and give myself some time to unwind and reflect on the last three weeks. Being home makes me realize even more the great time that I had in London and makes me even more eager to head back.

AM