England: Day One: Not in England Yet
I meant to try and write these up as we were going along. However, I decided it was more fun to hang out with folks than blog while on vacation.
The beginning and the end of this trip involved waking up at 4 AM, so I might as well start there. Rachel and I woke up to our alarms after some final packing and a solid 4 hours of sleep. Woo! Cab to the airport, flight to Harrisburg via Chicago (a la Wilco) and all day. We had some tasty Chili's in the airport in Chicago, though as it was an express Chili's they did not have curly fries. Sad.
We began our time in Pennsylvania with Kate saying that she'd be late and Rachel and I trying to decide if people there are fat because they eat too much or if they eat too much because they are fat. To be fair, it's probably because the middle of PA has nothing to do, people eat farmer's diets, and not very many people do the work that the 5k calorie meals require. The Harrisburg airport did have rocking chairs, however, which was pretty awesome.
Kate picked us up, we stopped by their house to grab Simon, and we all went out for a tasty meal. After that, the returned to the casa del Kate and Simon for a tour, introduction to cats, and hanging out while they finished packing. Around midnight, they had finished packing and we loaded 4 adult's luggage into a Prius. It's a good thing we were well versed in Tetris! As we needed to be at Reagan airport by 4 AM (a lie, as they don't open security until after 5 AM) we headed out around 1 AM for the 2 hours car trip to Reagan. Rachel slept against the luggage while Simon and I tried to keep Kate awake and alert for the drive.
While we all arrived in one piece physically, our minds had been shattered by the long day. At this point, we had all been up for 20+ hours without any real break. We wouldn't get one any time soon, either. We camped the not-yet-open American Airlines desk at Reagan, joking at the hilarious wacko who insisted on telling everyone that he was in front of us in a line that didn't exist. It turned out that one of the airline employees had been keeping track of the order in which everyone arrived in order to put us in a line to wait for self-check machines that weren't yet on.
When she finally activated the machines, Rachel and I zipped through check-in with no problems. Simon, unfortunately and because of the lethargy of the federal government, had to jump through all kinds of hoops to be allowed to check in. We collected ourselves and then had to go wait in yet another line as the security checkpoint had not yet been opened. Another hour and several breakfast sandwiches later, and we were on our first flight of that day (and third of our trip).
As the trip from Reagan to JFK was only an hour long, we mostly stayed awake - sitting in some kind of hilarious torpor. Eventually, we made it to JFK and our flight to London. By the time we took off, all 4 of us were crashed into unconsciousness, having been up and relatively alert for far too many hours.
The beginning and the end of this trip involved waking up at 4 AM, so I might as well start there. Rachel and I woke up to our alarms after some final packing and a solid 4 hours of sleep. Woo! Cab to the airport, flight to Harrisburg via Chicago (a la Wilco) and all day. We had some tasty Chili's in the airport in Chicago, though as it was an express Chili's they did not have curly fries. Sad.
We began our time in Pennsylvania with Kate saying that she'd be late and Rachel and I trying to decide if people there are fat because they eat too much or if they eat too much because they are fat. To be fair, it's probably because the middle of PA has nothing to do, people eat farmer's diets, and not very many people do the work that the 5k calorie meals require. The Harrisburg airport did have rocking chairs, however, which was pretty awesome.
Kate picked us up, we stopped by their house to grab Simon, and we all went out for a tasty meal. After that, the returned to the casa del Kate and Simon for a tour, introduction to cats, and hanging out while they finished packing. Around midnight, they had finished packing and we loaded 4 adult's luggage into a Prius. It's a good thing we were well versed in Tetris! As we needed to be at Reagan airport by 4 AM (a lie, as they don't open security until after 5 AM) we headed out around 1 AM for the 2 hours car trip to Reagan. Rachel slept against the luggage while Simon and I tried to keep Kate awake and alert for the drive.
While we all arrived in one piece physically, our minds had been shattered by the long day. At this point, we had all been up for 20+ hours without any real break. We wouldn't get one any time soon, either. We camped the not-yet-open American Airlines desk at Reagan, joking at the hilarious wacko who insisted on telling everyone that he was in front of us in a line that didn't exist. It turned out that one of the airline employees had been keeping track of the order in which everyone arrived in order to put us in a line to wait for self-check machines that weren't yet on.
When she finally activated the machines, Rachel and I zipped through check-in with no problems. Simon, unfortunately and because of the lethargy of the federal government, had to jump through all kinds of hoops to be allowed to check in. We collected ourselves and then had to go wait in yet another line as the security checkpoint had not yet been opened. Another hour and several breakfast sandwiches later, and we were on our first flight of that day (and third of our trip).
As the trip from Reagan to JFK was only an hour long, we mostly stayed awake - sitting in some kind of hilarious torpor. Eventually, we made it to JFK and our flight to London. By the time we took off, all 4 of us were crashed into unconsciousness, having been up and relatively alert for far too many hours.