LANDING IN LONDON

Getting to the airport, on the El, is not as easy or as quick as it should be. I had to work on Wednesday, at least some of the day, because I had already used up all my vacation days and was using my floating holidays for this trip. American work schedules suck ass. I would later tell my astonished Irish relatives that I only get 10 vacation days a year, and they would tell me that by law, they get a minimum of 20, but almost always they get 25. That's five weeks off! That would be incredible.

I left work at 2, figuring that I had enough time to get to the airport and do all the international flight checks in time for a 5:15 takeoff. The El took upwards of 50 minutes to get to O'Hare, which might have been something I could have anticipated if I'd checked a CTA schedule. I looked at my watch about 25 times, which just annoyed me more. I finally got there and took the tram to Terminal 5, the international terminal. That makes sense, right? Except that American Airlines, regardless of where you are flying, leaves from Terminal 3. Now how exactly am I supposed to know to buck common sense when it comes to a certain airline? I walked up and down number 5, then asked an attendant who responded as if I were the stupidest person alive that I needed to be at 3, then I reboarded the tram and went there. I met my family at 3:45. They had gotten there a half hour before they said they would, so they waited for me even longer than they expected to. They had me paged twice, but I must have been on the trams when the call went out. This is exactly why I hate O'Hare, and why I was against the expansion plan. I really don't think the answer is to make the place bigger, more busy and more chaotic. Peotone would alleviate much of the south suburban traffic and allow for a much more cohesive airport experience. But that fight was lost. I'll move on.

We breezed through security and ended up waiting at the gate for a long time, like always. Michelle met a classmate and his mom, who were on our same flight. The plane took off half an hour late and we were in the stratosphere, flying over Nova Scotia and Greenland, places I may never otherwise get to mention. I watched "The Island" which was a lot better than the reviews made it out to be, and three episodes of "Two and a Half Men" which is one of my favorite sitcoms, but doesn't seem suitable for the general audiences on a flight.

The plane touched down at Heathrow at 7AM Thursday and we braved almost an hour waiting in line at customs. It was insane. I've never seen so many people in line so early at a customs station. Granted I've only been to three customs stations but it was insane. Flights from Bahrain and Qatar had just landed too so there were many visitors that appeared at the same time, trying to get into the country.

We got our luggage, got on the tube at Heathrow and hit rush hour. Long tube ride to Earl's Court, about 45 minutes. We transferred at Earl's Court and got off at West Brompton, then walked the half-mile to find our "motel." I say motel because it was one in comparison to London hotels. It had the rates of a motel (99 pounds a night, which is about $175, and that's cheap) and the space layout of a motel. The rooms were tiny, with two full beds in each and not much room to move around. Not all London hotel rooms have bathrooms (those that do are called "en suites"), but ours did. As part of a (smart) energy conservation movement, in order to turn on the lights, you have to put your keycard in a slot -- so you can't leave with your lights on -- and your toilet has two buttons, one for each type of waste, in order to use the right amount of water to flush.

We were all pretty exhausted after not sleeping, or not sleeping well, on our flight, but we hadn't time to nap. Our first day in London was starting, and we had a shitload to do.