The morning came up too quickly, one because I hadn’t had enough time to sleep off Saturday night’s binge, and I had a headache; two because it meant leaving London. But the morning wasn’t going to cease its progress, and so I got up.
Within 45 minutes we three were all showered and dressed, and we headed down for breakfast, which seemed a lonely affair, as we were the only people from our group in the restaurant. At least my headache faded.
We finished and headed back up, closed up our suitcases and dragged them downstairs, and we checked out. The South Kensington tube station was sparsely populated at 9:45 on this Sunday morning, so getting to the platform and onto the train were effortless. The ride to the airport took just a little longer than I had hoped, and the walk to the ticket counter from the Terminals 1, 2 and 3 tube stop was much longer than I had anticipated. Checked in without any difficulties, we moved along through security with gate 16 our eventual destination, though the ticket agent said it could turn out to be a different gate, and that we should be sure to check the monitors.
Heathrow Airport has been cleverly set up with an eye for marketing. As you clear through security (they have a separate screening line where the only thing they’re checking is your shoes; you take them off and put them directly on the x-ray belt!), you are set free into a vast duty-free shopping area, with alcohol directly in front of you. And believe me, with the US Dollar as weak as it is against other currencies, duty free in England is no bargain!
We did hit the souvenir racks for one last go, and then we made our way to the gate. There was some minor confusion as we looked at one of the Departures monitors and saw a flight to Chicago at the correct time of 12:40 p.m., departing from gate 18. Final call! We walked very quickly to the gate despite the fact that it was still 11:50. I was quite certain United Airlines wouldn’t be boarding the plane nearly an hour before departure. We arrived at gate 18 only to learn that the Chicago flight was an American Airlines plane. Almost in a panic we rushed to gate 16 where, lo! and behold, our fellow passengers were leisurely waiting for the boarding time to arrive.
Soon we boarded and were on our way home. I usually don’t watch the movies on the plane, but I wasn’t particularly in the mood to write, and the guide’s description of something called “Hot Fuzz” intrigued me. I watched it and laughed my ass off! More on that in a later post…unless I forget.
I did indulge my writing hobby after the film. It is here that I must confess, as one who reads this – THE one who reads this – will probably have figured out by this point, that I wrote most of this journal much later than the events actually occurred. There just wasn’t time in the day to cover all of the London that we covered, and then write about it. The high-speed internet rate at the hotel was so exorbitant it was ridiculous, but the nearby internet cafes all closed at 11:00 p.m., leaving no time to write, choose pictures, upload them and post. So I’ve done most of that in the days following my return. I hope my reader will forgive me that.
The flight was like a traveler’s dream. Okay, I didn’t have a sizzling rendezvous with a voluptuous flight attendant in the back of the plane, but maybe your travel dreams are different than mine…. The flight departed on time, didn’t crash on take-off or landing, arrived early, the passport line moved very quickly, luggage was already on the belt, and Customs didn’t consider us a threat.
A’s parents met us outside Customs, his dejected sister pretending that she missed him. We traded brief stories about all the things that happened, and soon we were inching away, needing to get ourselves home. Finally, we said our good-byes, and we were a couple again.
Of course, a trip as pleasant as ours, from the day we left for London until the day we returned, can’t go completely without frustration, and this one waited until we were at our most tired, and at our most desirous to be home to strike us. Mrs. Farrago and I decided to take public transportation home. Usually that doesn’t call for an ominous overtone in the soundtrack. My only concern was lugging the suitcases onto and off of the Blue Line train, through the turnstiles, up two escalators and onto and off of a bus.
We wheeled the cases through O’Hare airport and, just before we got to the pedestrian tunnel a young black man in City of Chicago work clothes said, “The Blue Line is closed. Two cars derailed at Rosemont. You have to go to the shuttle center and catch a CTA bus.”
I said, “You’re kidding!” but, like sheep, we headed for the Bus and Shuttle Center. We got there and saw a huge crowd of people lined up at the door of a CTA bus, and I wasn’t about to try to get two fat suitcases onto it. So we went into the nearby Hilton O’Hare Hotel and asked the bellman to call a cab for us. He did, and he told us that cab number 3795 would be there in 10 minutes, but “wait inside here. It’s too hot outside.” In about 5 minutes a cab, number 3775 pulled up to the door of the hotel. It was too suspiciously close typographically to our cab’s number, and by the time I got past the urge to believe it was just a coincidence some people climbed into it and were whisked away. I decided to wait outside and, 10 minutes later I was more than convinced that our cab had been “stolen.” Mrs. Farrago suggested that we just take the next bus.
Just as I agreed, another bus pulled into the Shuttle Center lot, and there were very few people waiting for it. It kept rolling forward as a CTA assistant waved him on toward a parking spot. We caught up with it and, as the door opened, the assistant said, “They turned the Blue Line back on. You should take that. It’ll be faster.”
My frustration frothed. “We just came up from there!” I griped.
The assistant said, “Well, you can take the bus. It just goes three stops down the line, and you gotta get back on the Blue Line past where the problem was.”
“Yeah,” I groaned, “but with my luck, the bus will break down!”
The assistant just shrugged his shoulders.
Mrs. Farrago and I lugged our bags back down to the train station, through the turnstiles and onto a waiting train…which waited…and waited…and waited…for a full 35 minutes before the train driver announced on the P.A. that as soon as two incoming trains got into the station, ours would pull out. She kept making that announcement for the following ten minutes while people kept boarding and boarding and boarding to the point where our car was jammed in worse than sardines.
Finally the train began to move, but we crawled most of the way to the first station, where even more people got on. At the following station yet more boarded. It became apparent to me that the crowds were the result, mainly, of fans headed to the Cubs v. New York Mets at Wrigley Field. At virtually every stop between O’Hare and Addison Street (there are seven) no one left the car, and at most stops at least one more person wedged into the throng. I felt myself seething at the whole situation.
At long last we pulled in to the Addison Street station, and suddenly the car was bearable again! The next stop, Belmont Street, was ours. Fortunately the station attendant opened the wheelchair gate for us, so we didn’t have to deal with the suitcases at the turnstiles. At street level it was quickly obvious there would be no bus for a long time. Three other people were hailing cabs from a better vantage point than ours (though every cab was occupied!), but, thanks to the good, quick eye of Mrs. Farrago, we got one that dropped a passenger off at the mouth of the escalators, nearer to us than to the other taxi hopefuls!
In all it was a full three hours after we got off the plane before we finally got home. A quick trip to the bird-sitter’s and back made us one little happy family once more!
The End!
...A Parting Shot
You know something is worth a photo if the Asian tourists are taking pictures of it!
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