Planes, Trains and Automobiles

January 29, 2013
Just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Approximately 12:30 PM Local time.

I was sitting in the front seat of my mum’s car, with my brother’s fedora on my head and bear shaped bottle of honey in my hand. The sky was overcast, but the horrible fog that had blanked the ground earlier in the morning had lifted.

“This is good,” I said to my mother in the driver’s seat. “Everything about this feels right as it should.”

“You’re ready,” My mum replied confidently.

From the back seat, my father began to navigate us the long way to MKE airport, causing us to snake through the city itself. When we got to the airport, we began to take pictures of us in our fedoras. In every shot, my brother was holding the bottle of honey under his jacket as if it were a gun. He thought we looked like gangsters and so he did his best with the prop.

After I had checked my bag, we headed off towards Concourse C. My flight was scheduled to begin boarding at 3:20, and so we still had plenty of time, so Tom and I played a game of ping pong (since there happened to be a ping pong table placed outside the Concourse C). The game started off close, but he ended up winning by 5, giving him some bragging rights. I’ll have to beat him in the rematch, when I get back.

After Tom and My game was done, he and my father played a game, while I sat with my mum. I gave her a big hug and told her that I was anxious to get through security. I knew that I was well over three hours early for my flight. MKE is a small airport and so there is no way it would have taken me anywhere near three hours to get through, but I was anxious and I didn’t want to take any chances. So, when Tom and Dad had finished their game we made our way to security. The guard cracked a few jokes at us, and then offered to take our picture. Afterwards, we said our goodbyes.

“I love you,” I said hugging my mum.

“I love you too,” She replied through tears.

I hugged Tom next, “See ya.”

“Get laid,” he replied with a smile.

“I love you,” I said to dad, as I gave him a hug too.

“I love you too,” he replied.

I hugged mum again, and she said, “Be safe, please be safe.”

“I will,” I replied. “I love you,” I said to all of them, as I turned to go to security. After they turned to walk away, I turned around, and watched them go. My dad waved at the last second, and then I was on my own.

I made it through security in about three minutes, and then found myself sitting and waiting for my flight. The first leg of my trip was to ORD, which wasn’t scheduled to board for another three hours. So I waited and tried not to fall asleep.

At 3:00, the first flight attendants made it to the desk, shortly making the announcement that due to terrible weather in ORD, we weren’t going to be flying anytime soon. The flight was delayed to 4:20, then to 4:40. After the second delay, I began to get really worried. My next flight was scheduled to leave at 6:00 from ORD. The flight attendants told me that if I missed my flight, I wouldn’t be able to fly into Manchester until the next day. If that happened, I was going to surely miss the train I had booked. Aren’t non-refundable tickets great? I had no cell phone, because I was about to go abroad. I had no American money, because it would be useless in the UK, so I wouldn’t be able to use a pay phone, and I had no internet access because the WIFI cost money I didn’t have to spend. I was up the creek without a paddle and now I had no choice other than to see where the current would take me.

Needless to say, I had lost my cool by the time we boarded at 5:05. We were cleared for takeoff at 5:14 and I was on pins and needles. Al, the co-pilot, noticed my nerves and checked next flight out on his smart-phone.

“You’re flight’s been delayed until 7:00,” he told me as I let out a deep sigh.

I thanked him profusely. After he left, a woman across from me looked up where we would be landing, and where my Manchester flight was departing, and the man in front of me told me how to get there. All I could do was smile at the kindness of these strangers. During the middle of the flight, Al came over and sat next to me, asking me about my trip and telling me about a few of his. I don’t care what anyone says, its moments like this and several others throughout the rest of my journey that really reassure my faith in humanity.

Even though Al had told me that the flight was delayed, the instant I got off the plane, I ran from Concourse G20 all the way to K9. We touched down in ORD at 5:50PM, and if Al was wrong. I did not want to miss my flight. When I got there, I saw that the flight had been delayed another hour and would now be departing at 8:00 PM. This worried me a little, because this meant I would be cutting my train ride close. I tried not to let this get to me, as I accepted a meal voucher as courtesy for the flight delay.

After I had eaten, I returned to K9, and started talking to an elderly British Couple. Barb and Roger had been all over. Retirement must be nice in the UK, because they told me about at least ten different trips they had been on. All I could think was that, I’m still young. There is plenty of time for me to see everything they had.

We began to board at 7:20, and I found myself sitting next to an older woman from Finland. Lyn was rather worried about the flight delay, because like me, Manchester was just a layover for her. However, when we boarded, they said the expected arrival time was 8:52 AM. More than enough time for Lyn to catch her 10:15 flight and for me to catch my 10:00 train ride. Feeling good about this, I decided to go to sleep.

Lyn woke me about an hour later. We were still in ORD, and we were told to get off the plane. Apparently, there was a broken part on the plane, and they had to figure out which one, if they had a replacement, and then repair it.

I walked back out to K9 and took a seat across from Barb and Roger. The flight was now scheduled to depart at 11:00. There was no hope of me making my Train now. As we continued to wait, I convinced two college students, Olivia and Ben, play Russian Uno with me. It was loads of fun, but it didn’t pass nearly enough time. After the game Ben disappeared, and Olivia and I talked for a bit. She was from New Mexico and going to study in Sheffield for a Semester.

After a little bit, the Stuart announced that the flight would be further delayed to 11:30. Apparently, the part that needed to be replaced was something that could be simply snapped on and so the installation would be simple if they could find one. The people around me and myself were a little unnerved that the plane had parts that were just snapped into place. However, the whole incident allowed us to crack an awful lot of jokes at the workers expense. If I had to draw one positive out of all of this, it would be that I was lucky enough to be with a group of people who had a wonderful sense of humour.

A little while later, the flight delay was extended to 11:50, and then shortly afterwards cancelled  American Airlines, paid for us all to stay in a Hotel and gave us meal vouchers for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. We picked up our checked bags from the baggage claim and then waited for the shuttle that would take us to the hotel. I was outside for about five minutes when the shuttle arrived. I gave the driver my bags, and went to get a seat. However, I hadn’t even buckled my seatbelt when the driver came to me and told me that, he wouldn’t be able to fit my bags in this trip. So I got out and had to wait.

There were about 60 of us from the flight, the shuttle car only held about 11 people, and there was about 25 minutes between pickups. So I waited with Sam – a college student from Buffalo, New York. He was also going to Sheffield, and was a decent guy to talk to while we waited. The air was damp and filled with drizzle. It was close to 2:00AM. I was told that this was the man’s fourth trip. My Finnish friend Lyn would later tell me that she was on his 7th trip. Either way, the night before, I had gotten about two hours of sleep. I felt awesome right about then.

We arrived at the hotel and were checked in by 2:20 AM. The wonderful thing about the hotel was that it had not only free WIFI but also a phone I could use. I called my mum, who answered on about the fifth ring. I was able to recant a befriended version of my day’s events. After the phone call, I crashed on my hotel bed.

I awoke the next morning to a call from my mother at about 11:00 AM. Due to the kindness of the front desk clerk the day before, checkout had been extended from noon to 2:00PM. So after my mother and I had a brief chat about my flight plans for the day, I began to get ready.

One of the only good things about this whole ordeal, was that I had to pick up my checked bag, which meant I had my full array of bathroom supplies at my disposal. This gave me the chance to take a proper shower and get ready. I also reorganized my bags so that my carry on was better equipped to deal with this kind of emergency if I was unlucky enough for this sort of thing to happen to me again.

At about 1:20PM, I decided to go online and see what my flights looked like, and as it turned out I was double booked. They booked me both on a flight at noon ORD -> JFK -> MAN and also on a flight at 6:00 PM ORD -> LHR -> MAN. The noon flight was delayed but since my shuttle back to ORD wasn’t until 2:00, there was no way I would be able to make it to that one.

When I was got on to the shuttle, I was greeted by Lyn and Sue, a nice woman from Texas. They were recounting their individual tails from the night before when we all split up. Together with about seven others, we arrived at British Air’s terminal (5).

We weren’t there long before we were told that our flight was actually on American Airlines. So we all headed towards the tram, and made it to terminal (3). Here most of us got through, except for a middle aged man, his elderly mother, her friend, and myself. We were instructed to go back to British Air, because that’s where I flight was heading out. After several more minutes of suitcase hauling, we arrived in Terminal 5, where my three companions were admitted and I was sent back to Terminal 3.

This time, I was finally admitted, and they printed a ticket for me. However, they could not print the boarding pass for my connecting flight from LHR -> MAN. Annoyed by the process but at the same time relieved that I was finally through, I made my way through ORD to gate K12, where I met up with Sam, Ben, Sue, and Lyn. I was able to recant my story of the previous morning.

The flight was mostly on time and we were in the air by 6:30. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sit near any of my friends, and believe it or not, I wasn’t tired. So, I stayed awake for the whole flight to London, watching a few in flight movies. My biggest regret on the whole trip, was that I didn’t have the window seat on our flight into London.

As we were approaching, the pilot announced that since we were about 15 minutes early, we would have to wait before entering LHR. This means that for about a half an hour before we landed, we circled around the London area at a low altitude. By craning my neck I could see my first glimpses of the UK if the plane turned. I couldn’t believe it. I was finally in the UK.

I landed in Heathrow at about 8:00 local time. My next flight to Manchester wasn’t scheduled until 11:11 so I had plenty of time. I’ll never forget my first moments here, the sun was shining through a partly cloudy sky and warm, moist air filled my lungs. I was finally across the pond! No matter how bad things had been, I knew at this moment that it was all going to be okay.

When I arrived at customs, the woman behind the counter had trouble locating my connecting flight. ORD had screwed up big time, and so now I had to fight to make sure I ended up on the proper flight. Eventually, I made it through with a new ticket and a new stamp in my passport.

Soon after customs, I had to go back through security. In the UK, they do it a bit different. They don’t make you take off your shoes. Partially because this made me think their security was lax and partially because I didn’t see anyone else doing this, I didn’t take my laptop out of my bag.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m still waiting for them to recheck my bag to insure I don’t have some horrible device in it. When the man finally gets to my bin, he pulls out my keys and notices I have a “Student of the Month” key chain.

“What kind of student of the month doesn’t know to take their laptop out of their bag?” he asked teasingly.

“I’m thick,” I replied feeling incredibly stupid.

“Just don’t do it next time,” he said handing me my things.

I made it to concourse A and then proceeded to search for my flight. The interesting thing about British airports is that they don’t list exactly where the flight is taking off from until just before the flight is ready to board. Why do they do this? Makes no sense to me. Either way, I eventually found Sam and Ben, and the three of us ran to A19 as fast as we could. When we got there, I quickly saw Barb and Robert. They were a ways behind us in line, but they waved at me.

As I gave my plane ticket to the lady behind the counter, it unsurprisingly didn’t work. It would take another nearly 15 minutes before they had me sorted out and on the plane. All the switching around back in O’Hare made this whole business a complete and utter mess. The ride to Manchester was quick and painless. We never got so high that I couldn’t see the ground, and I sat by a very interesting girl who had traveled all over the world. I have to say, I wasn’t so horribly jealous to hear about Barb and Roberts travels, because they were older and had a lot more time for it than I. However, this girl couldn’t have been too different in age to me. Man was I envious.

Arriving in Manchester at about 1:10PM, I knew two things. A, I was one step closer to Scotland, and B, because my train tickets were now useless, I had absolutely no way to get there. All I could do was hope to get my luggage. This time fortune was on my side. My bag was there, and so once I had my luggage, Sam, Ben and I made our way to the rail station. They were headed to Sheffield, and so this was where we parted ways. However, I gave them my email, promising to give them a tour of Edinburgh if they came my way.

When I got to the ticket counter, I pled my case to the clerk, explaining everything that had happened to me over the previous two days. I showed him receipts and notes for the train tickets, airfare, and proof of the cancelation.

The man met me with a pitying look, and said “I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about that.”

“How much is another ticket to Edinburgh Waverly?” I asked as he punched a button on his key pad and £64 showed on the register. My jaw nearly hit the floor. Sighing, I said, “Well I guess I don’t have much choice.”

“Do you have the card you bought your last tickets with?” he asked, as I pulled out my card and handed it to him. He put it in the machine, pressed a few buttons and then walked over to a printer. He stamped a piece of paper and stapled a bunch of things together. Handing me the bundle he said, “Here, I gave you your tickets from yesterday.”

I thanked him almost speechlessly. This might have been the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me. I got on the train, and from there it was a rather peaceful ride through the scenic country side. I was plum tuckered out by this point, but I couldn’t let myself fall asleep, because I wanted to be able to keep an eye on my bags. From Manchester Airport, there are nearly 15 stops. Waverly Station in Edinburgh is the last one. I left Manchester at 2:00PM, but it was well after 6:00 by the time I finally arrived in Waverly.

From here, I eventually made my way to North Bridge, where my bus stop was supposed to be. Despite getting written directions from multiple people on how to get to the right bus stop from Waverly, it took me the better part of a half an hour to find it. It could have been because I hadn’t slept in over a day, because I was in an unfamiliar place after dark, or because I had never really rode on public transportation before, but whatever the reason, I was very lost.

I eventually made it to the town of Dalkieth. From the Buccleuch Street stop, the Dalkieth House is the better part of a mile away. I was a little disorientated, and I walked in circles for a bit, but by 7:30Pm the Dalkieth house was in sight. I had missed most of orientation, but after all the chaos of the previous two days, that didn’t really matter. I had finally arrived. Now the Semester could begin.

Cheers Mates!

-Anth