I'm back, I'm alive, I'm safe. Yay.

/>Yesterday was interesting, to say the least. My flight was scheduled for a 12:45 departure. I figured that arriving around 9:30 would get me plenty of time to get through security and grab a meal before the boarding, which was supposed to start at 11:45.

Already, you should be able to sense that there were some problems.

I had everything all packed, and I woke up at 7AM to finish the last of it - things that I needed at the last minute, such as a hairbrush. By 8:30, I was walking out the door and calling for a cab. It takes about an hour to get from the Chelsea area to Heathrow, or so I thought.

Of course, the cab service was all busy, and they were sorry, try again later. I went back inside and asked at teh front desk if IES knew any other cab companies. They gave me a number, and upon calling it, the dispatcher sent over a nice man from Uganda named David. He wasn't a cabbie, but a private hire driver. By this point, I was half an hour late.

David got me to Heathrow in half an hour, without driving recklessly. I was impressed. He also charged half of what the cab fare was - 25 pounds instead of the 50 I had budgeted. Yay!

Once at Heathrow, I had to check in. Of course, my bags were overweight. I wasn't surprised. However, I had to take the bags from the Air India desk to the customer service to pay for overweight baggage (another 25 pounds), and then back to the Air India desk. Finally, though, I had dropped off my heavy bags and was ready to find my gate.

I had forgotten to leave motion sickness medicine out, though, so I figured I'd be able to buy some at the airport pharmacy. I could buy just about everything else in the whole world at Heathrow airport, but not motion sickness medicine. This seems rather counter-intuitive to me, but oh well. I figured I'd be able to tough it out. Flights tend to be smooth, anyway, aside from a bit of turbulence here and there.

The gate was supposed to be announced at 11:20. It wasn't announced until 12:15. At that point, I hurried to the gate, only to find that they wouldn't let us in. They didn't open the doors until 12:25, at which point we learned that the passengers from the flight before hadn't even gotten off the plane. The airplane crew was sitting around the gate waiting as well.

At 1:120, they made the call for all first and executive class passengers to board. I had dragged out my laptop and was playing Discworld (Rincewind voiced by Eric Idle), and so I shut it down. No sooner had I zipped up my bag again then did they make the announcement, "All right, everyone else can board now."

The plane was a 747. There were about fifty people on board... counting the crew, I believe. Maybe up to 60.

I had been given a window seat right in front of the door. All that leg room! However, the stewardess told me that the armrests on those chairs didn't flip up, so if I'd like, I could move a row back. Both the row I was in and the one behind me were completely empty.

Why were flipping-up armrests important, you ask? For a simple reason. There were so few people that everyone got a row to themselves, if they wanted. Flip up the armrests, use all the little back pillows and spare blankets to make a pillow, pull a third pillow over your legs - flat bed in economy class!

This flight was wonderful. The seats were all very comfortable, with adjustable headrests (so if you wanted to sleep sitting upright, you could have something to lean your head against), and computer screens in the back of every chair. There were also handsets, so you could play video games. I totally kicked the computer's butt at Mancala about fifty times (but it beat me in that dots and lines game where you try to make squares). I also watched Cirque du Soleil and 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter.

I did take a lying-down nap for a couple hours, but my attempts to wear myself out earlier had completely backfired, and I wasn't really that tired. Sigh.

/>The nice thing about such a big plane and little people, aside from the space, was the food. They had so much extra food that they were giving us seconds and thirds of everything except the full meals. Before we had even started taxiing for take-off, we had all been given two things of orange juice.

After landing, due to my seat position, I was the first one off, first one through immigration, and first one waiting for my bags.

I was also one of the last ones to get my bags. Over an hour of waiting. Sigh.

Then it was time to go through customs. There were two lines - A and B. A had twenty people. B had one. I went to B. It was a little further away, but not really (next carosal over, instead of immediately at Air India's).

My parents had said in advance that they'd be waiting right outside customs. I go out... and nobody. I go all the way outside, figure they'd been there a couple hours and wouldn't be waiting outside, they were too smart for that, so I went back in. I started wandering down in the A direction, and ran into my dad. Apparently, someone told them that I'd come out through exit A, so they were waiting there. Oh well. ^_^

We went out to Olive Garden, where we met up with Emily, and then we came home and I went to bed. I woke up at 6 AM (11 AM, England time), sorted through my luggage, and then came upstairs and had lunch. Breakfast. First meal of the day.

And now I'm writing this to you. I think I'm done now. Am I glad to be home? Meh. I'd like to go back. It does look more like Christmas here, though, with the snow and the Christmas tree. 

/>Merry Christmas, everyone, and thanks for reading!