The plan was to leave the house in time to make it to C&J Bus Terminal in Dover by 3:30 to catch our ride into Boston. Since we were travelling internationally, we wanted to give ourselves two hours at the airport to check in, go through security and then board at 7:30. The benefit of traveling by bus was that we could park there for free, no one would have to make the long haul into the city to drop us off and then pick us up!
I loved traveling by bus. It had free wi-fi and enabled us to finally catch our breath from a hectic week prior to our leaving. We shot off last minute emails and watched The Addams Family reruns that were showing on the TV screens on the bus. My mind was going a million miles a second. Now, if only the flight would go that fast, eh?
We made it into Boston on time and got checked in. We blitzed through security and didn't have to have the pat-down or the "special" screening via the body scanners. It pays to take off the belts, shoes, watches, etc.
Once in our terminal we waited. Our first leg of the journey would be a six and a half hours. We were headed to London! It was recommended to us to set our watches to where we were going and try to set our body clocks to that time as well. Once on the plane our first goal was to go to sleep! This is a great goal and would've been a little more probable if there had been a skosh more room for my knees. We deliberately purchased aisle seats so that at least we could stand and stretch occasionally. Six hours is a long time to sit with your knees rubbing against the seat in front of you. Taigen, who has the odd knack of being able to sleep ANYWHERE, fell asleep as if on cue. I nodded off here and there. Finally, after about 5 hours I put a pillow between my knees and the seat in front of me and that helped considerably. I fell asleep.
London was foggy and rainy. Big surprise there, hmm? I didn't care. I was in England and SO excited! We disembarked and navigated our way through the airport. There's construction going on at London Heathrow so it seemed a little crazy. We went through security again (which wasn't as tight as in the US) and made our way toward the right terminal. Funny thing about London Heathrow. They don't post the gate of your flight until about 40 minutes before take-off. You're herded into this mall-like area where you wait with everyone else. Maybe this is because of construction, but to me, it seemed like a deliberate decision to get people to frequent the stores. The first item on my agenda: Starbucks. I had my gift-card left over from Christmas that I used. Coffee never tasted SO good. I was exhausted, but jubilant to be there. The shops weren't your typical airport stores. They had places like Cartier, Tiffany's, Harrods, Burberry, Chanel, Armani, Gucci and the like. Do people really get off the planes and think, "I'm going to go into Cartier and buy a watch"? Maybe I'm just an ol' girl from the sticks, but this seems outlandish to me. My big splurge was a tall mocha at Starbucks with my leftover gift card from Christmas!We went into one of the stores (the duty-free, souvenir-type one) and looked around. Taigen ended up getting Marshall and Shaylen a small magnet for the fridge. Nothing else really struck our fancy, but we wanted to get them something from England. We sat down in the common area and in the middle of the hustle and bustle, I nodded off. I didn't fall asleep, mind you, but my body sure wanted to. Even though it was posted that there was free wi-fi, we were unable to connect and let people know we arrived safely. I guess they'd figure we made it if nothing appeared on the news.
Finally our gate was posted and we went to catch our flight to Helsinki. Only two more legs to go and we'd arrive in Vienna!
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