Coming Soon:

Picture highlights of our trip. (This'll just take a little time to sync our albums together is all...)

Not a Great Day: Pissed in London

After a nearly flawless streak of 28 straight days ending with Jennie proclaiming "Another great day!" (this streak was interrupted only by the day in which we got lost hiking around Faralya, where I ended up vomiting due to heat exhaustion, but the streak subsequently began anew), we were filled with new grievances in London.

An unexpected trip to London goes by in a blur.

As I sort of anticipated, there were complications in England that were related to the failed terrorist attack that occurred in Glasgow less than a week earlier. First, our flight from Turkey to London was delayed by about 4 hours, which ensured that we would be missing our scheduled flight to New York, and that Jennie would be missing her connection back to D.C. This was followed by the announcement that all flights out of Terminal 4 in London's Heathrow airport were canceled due to suspicious package (and of course, our rescheduled connecting flight was out of Terminal 4). When we finally touched down in London we soon discover that our checked luggage has been lost.

British Airways was good enough to agree to compensate travelers for this setback, and after about two or three hours of trying to orient ourselves to the situation, we found ourselves heading into downtown London to grab a hotel for the night. We tried to make the best of the situation, eating a late dinner at one of London's many fine Indian restaurants. I was excited about the possibility that we might be stuck in London for a long time on British Airways' bill. After all, I'd never been in London before, and incidentally, we were there smack-dab in the middle of Wimbledon.

In the end, this was all not meant to be. After a long night on the phones trying to set up our new flight back to the states, and in which I got no more than about 3 hours of sleep, we are back on our feet at 6 in the morning with a 10:30 flight. We get to the airport at about 7AM, with a good 3 1/2 hours to go before takeoff, but find ourselves in a long line to check in. After 45 minutes (7:45 AM), we have worked our way through half of the line, and I assume that we'll be through the line with 2 hours to spare before the flight takes off. But then, they start calling people to skip ahead of us in line who have more eminent flights. By about 9:45 we have been standing literally at the front of the line for an hour while we are getting bypassed by people flying to Dubai, Boston, and everywhere else. It is at about this time that I start compiling an angry music playlist on my iPod and regretting that I don't have any Rage Against the Machine to listen to (I have since saved and retitled the playlist "Pissed in Heathrow"). After over two hours in the line, we finally get to the desk attendant, she informs us that we have arrived too late and that our gate has closed, and I bubble over and let out an emphatic "FUUUUUUCCCCKKK!!" and start shaking with rage. Apparently this did the trick, because she then agrees to make an exception for us and gets us checked in.

The rest of our trips back to the states (mine to Chicago, Jennie's to D.C.) are similarly tense. Since my checked baggage has been lost, I no longer have anything to check away my enormous bottle of rakı that I had bought Duty-Free in Istanbul's airport. When the security guards in New York see me try to pass this through my carry-on luggage for my Chicago flight, they laugh and say the best I can do is drink as much of the bottle as I can right now and throw the rest away. At 45% alcohol by volume, I decide this is a bad idea, and quickly run back to check-in where the people at JetBlue are able to create a makeshift box to check my rakı, and I catch the flight with minutes to spare. For her part, Jennie was bumped off the next several flights and only arrives back in Washington, D.C. at midnight.

Fireworks over Chicago's Navy Pier.

In the end, I was able to make it back to Chicago, where I arrived just in time to join my friend Jen and her friends for a picnic at Lincoln Park. Incidentally, the first food that I am offered at this picnic is a Mediterranean-style turkey burger (true!). This is followed by a night on the roof of her friend's 30-floor apartment complex to watch the hours of firework shows that are happening in neighborhoods around the city. Jen informs me that the main fireworks in Chicago actually happened on the 3rd, and that what I am seeing are actually fireworks celebrating my safe return. Well, thank you very much, Chicago! I had a great time.