Around 9:30, I set out for the tube to the airport - Victoria line at Oxford Circus to Green Park, where I transferred to the Piccadilly line to Heathrow Terminals 1,2,3, & 5. Near the end, when the announcer was telling us how to transfer to the train that would take us to Terminal 4, I hopped off the train when I saw a list at one station that indicated which airlines were located at which terminals. I saw "American Airlines 3", and hopped right back on the same train. After two more stops, we were at Terminals 1, 2, and 3. I got off and followed the signs to the correct location.
I checked in at the computer self-check-in thingies, and got in line to go through the baggage check thing. No one would confirm that my suitcase would be ok as a carry-on piece, and I refused (completely irrationally too) to use the provided little cage thing to make sure that it was ok. I had so much time, that waiting in lines did not concern me, so I got in the line that led to another line. In the second line, I eyed my fellow humans in line, with their huge suitcases, and wondered what they could possibly have in there, or how long their trips had been, that required so much baggage.
At the front of the line, I gave my passport and boarding pass to a UK immigration official, who quizzed me about my time there and what I did for a living. Then I went to the baggage check, and decided to check my case after all, and only slightly lamented giving my Burt's Bees shampoo to the hostel that morning. After that, I began to walk in the direction of the gates. Before getting there, however, I had to get rid of my pounds, so I
In Heathrow, I guess that there aren't enough gates to allow people to wait at their gate for hours before boarding, so people wait in a large room surrounded by Duty Free shops of every possible kind. We watch screens that list our destination city, and about a half hour before departure, the screen tells us which gate to go to.
First, I switched both of my phones off, instead of waiting until I was on the plane, then ducked into a perfumeria to take advantage of the free testers and make myself smell pretty for the flight. My flight was still waiting to be assigned, so I walked around, looking for the toy shop I had seen four years ago on my layover from Madrid to SFO, with no luck. Men in suits, women in sari's, and a whole lot of other people sat at the tables in the middle of the action, weary from travel. I just walked and looked at all of the dry goods, luxuries, and sugary sweets whose sale runs the engine of humanity, Then I passed by another screen with a list of destination cities, saw the number 34 to the right of the word Chicago, and set off to the right gate.
I walked forever before I got to 34, then had like 3 or 4 people examine my passport and boarding pass in succession before I got to the holding pen they put us in before they could open the door into the mobile hallway connected to the plane.
I had a window seat for this flight, over the wing. I plugged my headphones into the jack, and found that it was, well, jacked. I had to twist and turn the [whatever that part that holds the metal bit is called] just to get sound into one of the ear buds. I listened to the classical music as we taxied, endlessly, to the runway. When the plane turned, I looked back at the line of airplanes from various airlines waiting behind us. We aligned with the runway, and sped up, faster and faster, until the properties of air took over and lifted our giant metal container up above the weather.
The flight was going to be 7 and a half hours or so, and I knew from my last two flights, that sleep would be impossible. The headphones made it difficult to even want to look into the entertainment system, so I spent a lot of my time sitting, somewhat bored.
I did get up and stand, near one of the lavatories, which had a clogged sink. I alerted the flight attendants to the issue, and they came up to investigate. When the flight attendant checked it out, she and I told a young girl who had been waiting to use the lavatory that she had to use another one. However, I noticed that she went back and spoke with her father, who had to accompany her to a different lavatory. I realized that the ambient noise on the plane probably drowned out the words that the flight attendant and I were telling her, and she didn't understand why we were telling her that she couldn't use that lavatory. The flight attendants fixed the clog, and all was right again with the facilities, but probably not with the family of the girl we had directed to the back. After things died down, I headed back to where the kid and her dad were, and explained exactly what happened, so they weren't left thinking that a flight attendant and a random woman went and made life harder for them, for no reason. Then all really was right - at least in my immediate vicinity.
Back at my seat, I took out my notebook, and went to my notes on the nature and volume of earth's atmosphere. I had started the notes in January, but finished the calculations. There is a post on my "main" blog with the results of those calculations.
During the first few hours of the trip, we were served a meal, and we had the options of chicken with rice and carrots, and a mushroom ravioli. The crew assured us that both were delicious, in case they ran out of either one, but as a former vegetarian, I could hear their lack of understanding the consequences for certain passengers. I contemplated not being a part of the problem for those vegetarians aboard, but my desire to not eat food that I considered boring trumped my inclination to be nice, and I got the ravioli.
Yes, I know that I said that I hated mushrooms, but what I dislike is the texture of whole or sliced mushrooms, not the taste of them all mashed up.
There was a tiny salad, the portion of ravioli, water, which I did consume, and then a bunch of packages of various dry carbohydrates, which were left on the tray. I overheard half of an interaction between a flight attendant and someone in front of me, that went like this:
Person: [I technically did not hear what was said, but from the response, I can guess it was this] "What is this?"
Flight Attendant: Bread
Person: [Again, not technically heard, but assumed] Is there meat in it?
Flight Attendant: There isn't any meat in bread
Person: [Not heard, assumed] What is it?
Flight Attendant: [pausing for a second to find where he stored this information in his brain] It's like processed wheat and....
He trailed off since I guess the Person indicated that they understood. I'm sure that the person just had poor English skills, and probably realized what it was with the word 'wheat', but wasn't sure of the word 'bread'. Still, I knew that I just had to remember that, and share. Anyway, I ate, then they took the tray, things happened, we flew over Greenland, then into Canada. At two hours to land, the flight attendant came by with Customs cards and immigration forms, and first was handing out forms in Spanish, instead of English. She corrected that mistake, but handed the people in the seat in front of me forms in Chinese, by accident, and joked, "You mean you didn't know that you were supposed to learn Chinese before you got to America?"
They then fed us the second, smaller meal, which smelled delicious, but turned out to be a small, deep-dish cheese pizza (hey, I just realized that they must have served that item because we were landing in Chicago, and all it took was a few days and writing about it). I appreciated the appeal to all of the vegetarians, but I also laughed at the message this meal was sending. To me, it said, "Welcome to America, HERE ARE A BUNCH OF CARBS!" or, to be more explicit, "Welcome to America, THIS IS WHY WE ARE SO FAT!" I just ate the cheese and tomato sauce out of the pizza crust and the tiny package of grapes, ignoring the other various packages of shaped carbohydrates on the tray.
We saw a video about going through customs in America, and a Welcome to America video, showing people of various ages and races, all smiling and friendly. Our descent began over Michigan, then we flew over the south end of the lake, and I could see clear from the Michigan side, over Indiana, to Illinois. We flew north of the city, and I could see what looked like just a small clump of buildings, but it really was Chicago. I kept thinking of Richard Gere in that movie, explaining away a situation as "That's Chicago, baby." I'm not sure that I can express to you how much I love that city, and how it has nothing to do with the politics, and everything to do with the way I feel standing among some of the tallest buildings in the world - all in the middle of the American Midwest.
We landed, and it was a pretty jerky one, but we were on the ground and 20 minutes early to boot, at 3pm. After another endless taxi, we hooked up to the gate, and got off of the plane. I couldn't remember what the three steps were for customs, though I'm pretty sure that the first one wasn't "walk forever", but we did that before approaching two lines of people. A customs agent, or airport employee, verbally directed US Citizens and Green Card Holders to the left, and "esta" visa holders to the right. As is my wont, I examined the people, looking for something visual that might differentiate the two. I can't say that I was surprised, but I guess I was somewhat struck by the lack of difference in the groups. Both were the same random mix of human beings, mostly with skin tones of varying shades of beige, covering skeletons of most of the "types" that anthropologists have identified.
We rounded the corner of the line, I had a conversation with a mother and son of Georgian (the country) descent, and we finally got to the end of that line. We were then let into the second line, which wove around those things that they use to corral crowds like they have at, you know, customs. At one point, I could see the customs officers, and I noticed that, even though each cubicle-thing allowed for two workers, there was only one per section. I can only guess as to why they were half-staffing the customs line at O'Hare, but if you never leave the US to see the rest of the world, you'll never have to suffer that line. I couldn't even count the backs and forths that we went through, but we did get to the end of that line, then were ready for the third line!
This was the shortest line, with a couple groups ahead of me before I got to the customs person. He examined my passport, asked me a few questions, stamped it, and welcomed me home. I walked out into the baggage area, full, full, full of suitcases. Carousels were packed, and the bags from previous flights were stacked off to the side of some of them. I tracked down some kind of employee, and asked where the bags from my flight were (well, I didn't just say "my flight", but I don't want to type my exact flight information on this publicly available blog). He got me going in the right direction, and I got the specific location from another employee. The bags from my flight were still rounding a carousel, packed in as snuggly as possible, so I stood and waited, then spotted my light green case, grabbed it, and headed for the door.
I paused to survey the room, full of people's belongings, all stuffed into various cloth boxes and bags. No one there could tell you whose bags were whose, except for the owner of that bag. I guess that the expected value of the contents of any one case is significantly reduced by the possibility of encountering someone else's dirty underwear, and that helps keep, I don't know, everyone from deliberately taking someone else's luggage. I haven't heard of anyone losing their luggage from a flight and never getting it back. Keep that in mind, and get a little perspective during those few days when you wait for the airline to correct their mistake of routing your bags to the wrong city. And think about what this says about your fellow human beings, Calvin be damned.
At 4:45, according to when I called my mom, I finally left customs. After some confusion, a number of phone calls, and checking my work email, my mother finally arrived in her Ford Escape. We got a little turned around, but were finally on our way to Wisconsin. We stopped at one of my other favorite Chicago features - one of the Oasises, Lake Forest - which used to be just one giant fast food restaurant, but is now more like a food court with lots of choices, suspended over the interstate highway. When I was a kid, the Belvedere Oasis was the McDonald's, I think another one was a Hardee's, and that Lake Forest was actually a Wendy's, which we never went to because my family had no familiarity with the Wendy's chain, since there wasn't one in Rapids.
While Mom got gas, I walked over to the Oasis to see what they had. I got a medium coffee at Starbucks, then decided to get two pieces of Original Recipe dark meat chicken at KFC. I found Mom, and she went off to get her own food, then we went to the gas station so she could get a beverage, and we were off, on our way to home. I told stories, and listened to Mom's stories, then we got into Milwaukee and arrived at my sister's place. Mom had used this trip to get me to also pick up her expensive, but quality Adirondack chairs, and they were in the back of the SUV. We had to leave one at my sister's place, however, in order to make room for my sister to sit in the vehicle. We parked near her house, unloaded things, and brought a chair into her house. After talking for a little while with her roommate, and playing with the kitties, Mom, Sister, and I really set out for home. My throat became parched from all of the great conversation, from my own stories, their stories, and sharing information from documentaries, like the BBC's Lost Kingdoms of Africa.
When we were by Menasha, Dad called, and, at the same time, Sister indicated that she was a little lost. Mom and Sister were attempting to figure out where we were, and how we could get to where we wanted to be. At the same time, Dad was in my ear, wondering where we were, but Sister told me, several times, "don't say that," as I attempted to give Dad information that would directly answer his direct question. Eventually, Sister said "we're an hour and a half from home," I relayed the message to Dad, who said that he thought he would still be awake when we got home, but I was dubious. This happened some time after 9pm.
We continued the conversation throughout the rest of the trip, sailing through Stevens Point, and began the final, and most harrowing part of the trip, for me, at least. This part was all of the unlit county highways, leading to the state highway that leads to my parents' driveway. At any time during this segment (except for the part through the village, where there were lights and the speed limit was 25), a roughly 100 or 200 (I think) pound hoofed mammal's eyes would reflect the headlights, and it would dart into the path of our vehicle. The last time that this happened to me was in 2007, in a rental car, on the way down to Milwaukee, in the outskirts of Wisconsin Rapids. I saw the deer, applied the brakes, and swerved, just in time to look into the eyes of the terrified doe as she scrambled away with her life. We did not repeat anything like that during our drive home, arrived after 11pm, safe and sound, and found that Dad had gone to bed.
We talked a little more, I took out a few souvenirs, and gave Mom some of her gifts, changed for bed, then retreated upstairs, to my old room, to finally end Day 12.
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