England and Scotland for fun
Day 11 - Tuesday, May 3 -
Scotland/Atlanta
Rhona dropped me off at the Edinburgh airport for
the first time (I usually take the train back to London and then a
train from there to Gatwick), and, having checked in online, all I had
to do was check in my suitcase, and the check-in lady gave me both my
boarding passes for Edinburgh and London -- all I had to do was ride
and wait and ride to Atlanta.
Nice one-hour plane ride to Gatwick, and boarded to
Atlanta a couple of hours later -- where I was scrunched against the
window with the guy in front of me's headrest in my face (I can't
remember the last time I didn't have a headrest dropped in my face for
a plane ride) and a couple occupying the seats next to me. The
movies I watched were Hotel Rwanda,
Meet the Fockers, and In Good Company (that Dennis
Quaid/Topher Grace movie I can never remember the name of).
When I got to Atlanta, NINE hours later (which still
blows my mind), the customs didn't take too long (I was concerned that
I'd get hit with a charge for bringing wine into the country, since I'd
never done that before, but the customs guy said, "Just one bottle?
Don't you have any friends?"), I did get annoyed that they take your
suitcase away again after claiming it (apparently some double-checking
thing) without any explanation (charming airport worker people), so
felt a little lost sorting that out (which makes you realize you're
tired).
Then I got to the baggage carousel, where I expected
Dad and maybe Mom to be waiting for me (tired, as well, since the
customs added an hour to me getting there), and they weren't
there. I got a little concerned that maybe Dad misunderstood
something I'd said in an email back, so I kept checking out the door to
see if he was driving by or if he was going to walk up. Twenty
minutes (and everybody gone) later, I finally decided to drag my
luggage to a pay phone and take a chance that Mom was home and could
let me know what was going on.
Dad answered.
"Dad?"
"Yes?" he asked pleasantly.
"What are you doing answering the phone in
Marietta?" I asked less pleasantly.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"The airport," I replied.
"What airport?" he asked.
"The ATLANTA airport," I replied.
"You're not coming back until tomorrow!" he
proclaimed.
"I'm standing here right now," I assured him.
So he sounded all panicked and said they were on
their way, and I assured him that I'd just take the train and meet them
closer to the house. So I got on the train (which is really
conveniently located near baggage claim, especially when you take
advantage of the trolley for your luggage, which I really caught onto
this trip), and except for another train in front of us breaking down
and holding us up on the tracks for 20 minutes (which was long enough
to make me realize I was exhausted), that wasn't bad. Mom and Dad
were standing at the gate of the station, Dad running over to grab my
bags and take me ANYWHERE I wanted to go for dinner. I just
wanted to go to Chic-Fil-A (my Seattle brother's family has sort of
turned that into the official airport meal, since they don't have it in
Seattle and can't wait to get it when they come here) and go home,
which we did.
Surprisingly, the jetlag set in and hung on me for a
couple of days. (Fortunately, one of my coworkers had just
endured her own jetlag after returning from a couple of weeks in India,
so she was way sympathetic and told people things I was doing could
wait until next week - I finally got to them Thursday afternoon and
Friday morning.)
England and
Scotland for fun
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