Looooong Wait in London
Trip Start
Jan 07, 2010
1
10
Trip End
May 01, 2010
London, England, United Kingdom
Monday, May 3, 2010
After returning to our hotel, we changed into our travel clothes (AKA: comfy), grabbed our bags, waited for the rest of the groups, walked to the bus stop outside of the city, boarded the bus, arrived at the airport, checked our baggage, got our passport stamped, boarded the plane, took off, flew for 2 hours to London, landed in Gatwick airport, exited the plane, made it through customs, picked up our baggage, boarded a coach that took us to London Heathrow airport at around, collected our additional luggage that arrived from Harlaxton, prepared and weighed our luggage, drank some coffee (well, I did, that's for sure! We have a long wait to go until our flight at 10:15am!) and now we are just waiting… most are sleeping, but seeing that I am hyped up on caffeine, I’m just preparing my blog and uploading photos onto my computer!
After people started to arrive between 5 and 6am for their loved ones and business partners that were due to arrive, we decided that our time camping out in the Arrivals part of the airport was a little too emotional for all of us… we were ready to be embraced by our families, too! So a little before 7, we gathered up our luggage, and lined up to check our bags. The workers at the American Airlines desks were outright flabbergasted by our amount of luggage- their shocked and questioning facial expressions were priceless! Eventually, when they asked what was up, we explained that we had 4 months of clothes and souvenirs with us… I feel that we were the highlight of the morning at the American Airlines baggage check! After going through security, which was around 8am, we sat, waiting to see at which gate we our flight would fly out from. While we waited we bought last-minute souvenirs, mostly chocolate or books to read on the long plane ride. Eventually 9am rolled around and our gate was announced (of course, we had the furthest possible gate! Haha) and all of my friends, but one, headed out to board our plane. My friend Ali was due to fly out to Texas and had a different flight. So I said my first goodbye- a long, heartfelt hug with no expression but tears… we had spent 4 months together, each and every day, and now we knew that we would rarely see each other. We had all become best friends, and Ali was one of my closest friends.
Before this goodbye: as the end of my adventures abroad approached and I reflected on everything that had happened… I realized that the people that I met and made memories with were the best souvenir of all, souvenirs that I will stay in touch with forever because they are worth more than any Murano Glass chandelier or collection of Scottish Whiskey.
After a very sad goodbye, we headed to our gate and boarded our plane, saying goodbye to England and getting ready to say hello to America!
