Stuck in London

So since today is another day I guess I will talk about my exciting trip home from Scotland. As I mentioned earlier I was slightly homesick over Christmas and I was excited to go home. Part of my problem was that when I initially bought my tickets I was going to take the train from London to Glasgow. The people I was staying with told me that I didn’t want to take the train since it would take hours and would be expensive. So I then bought a ticket from the Gatwick airport to Glasgow.

Coming home I made it to the airport in plenty of time. The problem came when the plane landed in the wrong terminal at Gatwick. We then had to wait while the plane taxied forever, and then we were bussed to a different terminal and had to wait for our luggage. I then had to check my bags and get through security. When I was standing in the long line to check my bags a guard came around and had people shift so that those with earlier flights would be helped sooner. When I told the guard which flight I had she laughed. I had an hour and she took me out of line and told me that I needed to get my ticket changed because there was no way that I could make my original flight.

I panicked. I went to a help desk and panicked even more when I heard the customer service guy tell the lady in front of me that her tickets were non-transferable and that she would have to pay for a whole new ticket. By the time it was my turn I was so worried that I couldn’t understand what the guy was telling me. He had to repeat himself several times before I heard that there was another plane I could catch that would get me home. He made me wait for a while to see if there were any openings and by the time I learned I had to run through security and was one of the last people on the plane. I relaxed a little for the transatlantic flight and when I went through customs I was feeling a little better because at least I was on the same continent as the rest of my family.

Originally I had a transfer in Chicago and then Denver, since my tickets were changed I had a transfer in Ohio, then Chicago, and then I would be on my original flight at Denver. When I was trying to get to Denver I was given a ticket but the problem was apparently the flight was overbooked. Someone was already in the seat and there wasn’t another one open. A flight attendant was called over and the person who had the original ticket was moved up to first class and I was going to take the other seat. The lady let me have the first class seat because she wanted to stay with her friend. What nice seats. *sigh*

I was so glad when I made it home. I had been traveling for twenty hours at that point and when I saw my parents waiting for me I felt a wave of relief. As Douglas Adams wrote: “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport.’” How true how true.