Below are some photos of our beautiful flat.
This is where we worked on our blog at night.
Ted was on time as we’d expected. The first thing he said after he greeted us was “Do you want a photo?” That’s so sweet considering what my request for a photo one week previous had led to.
He also showed us a home a few steps from where we had been staying where Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Oliver lived for 22 years! It’s at 4 Christchurch Street, London.
We talked and talked on the way to the airport. Ted told us that in London you have to go to school for two years to be certified as a tour guide, and he showed us his photo credential as a certified tour guide. He did say that much of what they were taught in school is not what tourists are really interested in, so he does a lot of his own research.
When we arrived at Heathrow and were parked, he asked what airport we were flying through. We told him O’Hare. He said do you know who O’Hare is named after? We said, “No.” Interesting how some non Americans know more than some Americans about parts of our own history. This is basically what he told us (with a little assist from the Internet):
Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare was a fighter pilot assigned to an aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that he would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship, so he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet. As he was returning to the mother ship, he saw a squadron of Japanese bombers were speeding their way toward the American fleet. The American fighters were gone on a sortie and the fleet was all but defenseless. He couldn’t reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet. Nor, could he warn the fleet of the approaching danger. There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet.
Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes. Wing-mounted 50 calibers blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another. Butch weaved in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until finally all his ammunition was spent. Undaunted, he continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to at least clip off a wing or tail, in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible and rendering them unfit to fly. He was desperate to do anything he could to keep them from reaching the American ships. Finally, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction. Deeply relieved, Butch O’Hare and his tattered fighter limped back to the carrier. Upon arrival he reported in and related the event surrounding his return. The film from the camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of Butch’s daring attempt to protect his fleet. He had destroyed five enemy bombers. That was on February 20, 1942, and for that action he became the Navy’s first Ace of WWII and the first Naval Aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. A year later he was killed in aerial combat (from friendly fire) at the age of 29. His home town would not allow the memory of that heroic action to die. And today, O'Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man. O’Hare has a memorial with his statue and Medal of Honor. It is located between terminal 1 and 2. (We did not see this.)
Story number two:
Some years earlier in Chicago, Al Capone virtually owned the city. Capone wasn’t famous for anything heroic. A man named Easy Eddie was Capone’s lawyer. His skill at legal maneuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time. To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well. Eddie lived the high life of the Chicago mob and gave little consideration to the atrocity that went on around him. Eddy had a son that he loved dearly. Eddy saw to it that his young son had the best of everything; clothes, cars, and a good education. Despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach his son right from wrong. One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision. Offering his son a good name was far more important than all the riches he could lavish on him. He had to rectify all the wrong that he had done. He would go to the authorities and tell the truth about Scar-face Al Capone. He would try to clean up his tarnished name and offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this he must testify against The Mob, and he knew that the cost would be great. But more than anything, he wanted to be an example to his son. He wanted to do his best to make restoration and hopefully have a good name to leave his son. So, he testified. Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago street. He had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer at the greatest price he would ever pay.
What do these two stories have to do with one another? Well, you see, Butch O'Hare was Easy Eddie's son.
Amazing. We got out of the car, took some more photos and were on our way into Heathrow, a very organized airport.
Then we walked a ways to go through security. At the entrance to security there is a long “Prepare for Security” counter set up with an area that you can go through your carry on and pull out your liquids and put things in a baggie or toss the things that aren’t allowed through. Very helpful and organized. We didn’t utilize it, because I guess we didn’t think we had any liquids in our carryons. But as we passed to the next stage, where the bags go through the scanners, we were each asked to step aside with a TSA-like person. We were escorted over to another long table to a different agent, who opened our bags and found a few miscellaneous liquids that needed to be bagged up. I’m like. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I don’t think I even realized these little shampoos and stuff weren’t in a bag.” The woman agent said, “Oh that’s OK luv, easy to fix.” She bagged them all up, put everything back in my bag, zipped it up, and I was on my way. On the way she said, “Goodbye, luv!” Now that’s some civility! Brenda got her bag checked too except she got a man who was a little more stern and didn’t repack her bag for her. But we were now on our way.
First we found the toilet (free!). This reminds me that Patrick told us a story about his first time to America when he was looking for a toilet (which is how they are labeled in Belgium and other parts of Europe too I think.) He kept walking around the U.S. airport looking for a toilet but all he saw were these signs telling him about rooms where he could go and rest. He didn’t need to rest; he needed a toilet. Finally, he found a kind soul who told him that our “rest room” equaled their “toilet.” Communication!
Since we were checked in at least an hour ahead of our flight and our flight had not yet been assigned a gate, we next found a restaurant which served afternoon tea all day. We were seated and for the last time in London ordered scones and clotted cream, this time preparing it the British way with the jam first, then the clotted cream on top.
There was a monitor in the restaurant where we could check our flight status, but it kept showing “on hold.” Finally we saw it was delayed from 12:50p to 1:30p so we sat in our comfortable restaurant sipping tea a bit longer. Again, our server was in no hurry to bring us our check. There was no being rushed out of our seats, no feeling like we were bothering them, but were left alone to sit and visit. It was very interesting. Now I can say that this was a pattern in London, not a one-time fluke.
Eventually our flight was given a gate number, and we made our way to the gate.
Signs in Heathrow as we're on the conveyer belt heading toward gate. When we got there, there was a long, long line, just to check in for the flight and get to enter the lounge which was exclusive to our gate. We were told the equipment (plane) had arrived late from the U.S. so they needed to service it and clean it before we could get on.
We weren’t in the lounge for very long though when we were called to board our 777. On this plane there were five seats in the middle section and 2 seats on each of the outer rows. We had two seats on the right side of the plane (as when we came over), but this plane seemed roomier. (According to Seat Guru.com these seats had 32" of pitch, leg room. Also each seat had an individual TV monitor with an on Demand-like system where several movies are played on a series of continuous loops and a remote.
I was going to title this entry “An inch and a remote make all the difference.” It was definitely more comfortable. There was a large menu of movies and TV shows that you could watch. I watched The Odd Life of Timothy Green, People Like Us, and The Dark Knight Rises. Right in the middle of Dark Knight Rises, my TV started flipping out, off/on, off/on, off/on. I told the flight attendants and they reset it. But it took an hour for it to start working again and when I tried to watch the movie it started at the beginning again. So I have to find out how that one ended.
Then I started to watch People Like Us and it too flipped out in the middle and so Brenda told me the ending of that one. Brenda watched the Timothy Green movie, and some TV shows. We also had a flight tracker where we could follow the flight of the path. All in all, it was a smooth flight, comfortable, and seemed quicker than the 8 hours it was. Before we landed, we filled out customs declarations cards. Right on there, it asks if you are bringing fruit into the U.S., but somehow we didn’t think those apples in our carry ons that came from our Tesco grocery store really counted. (Don’t ask me why we thought that.) So on our custom declaration cards we said we had no fruit. There was some kind of statement on the card about if you had been staying on a farm or out in the country at a bed and breakfast, so I think we thought that because we had bought them in the city, it was OK.
When we arrived in Chicago, it was about 4:15 p.m., and our connecting flight—in a totally different concourse—was leaving at 5:15 p.m. I was envisioning us making the same mad dash we had made in the Brussels train station, but we learned that we would have to go through passport control, then pick up our luggage, then go through customs, then recheck our luggage and then make the mad dash. Hmm, not looking too feasible.
Evidently American Airlines had already figured that out, because when we got off the plane in Chicago, at the end of the ramp, there was a table set up for all the folks who had close connections. We saw our names, picked up our folders, and saw we had been re-booked on a flight to Dayton the following morning. We had a voucher for a night’s stay at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and a dinner voucher and a breakfast voucher. OK, so now we began our adventure through O’Hare.
We first walked to passport control, a long, long, winding line. While in that line, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent with a contraband-sniffing beagle that could sniff out fruit (no lie) came walking through. Brenda saw the woman agent holding a bag of confiscated fruit in one hand and the beagle’s leash in another, and she was like, I’m opening my bag and getting out my apple. In the meantime, the beagle walked right up to Brenda’s bag and sniffed her out! Still, no light came on in my head that I might want to pull out my apples. (Part of my mind was saying, maybe you didn’t really pack those apples, maybe you threw them out this morning in the flat. And I was not inclined to start emptying everything out of both bags to search for a frickin’ apple in that long, long line.) My logic: the dog didn’t sniff me out, so I must be fine.
We got through passport control, basically the U.S. border. Then we went to the baggage claim to pick up our bags. I have a little pink bandana tied around the handle of my suitcase so I can always recognize it when it comes off the plane. I saw my pink bandana coming around the carousel, moving rather quickly. My suitcase was leaning on top of another suitcase, so I grabbed my handle, but it kind of pulled me forward and I got tangled up. Somehow I never thought of just LETTING GO of the handle, so it pulled me down onto the floor. Then I let go. I kind of just sat down. I was not hurt, but extremely embarrassed. The airline employee man who weighed about 110 pound soaking wet came over to help me up, but I’m like, “No, I got this.” I was NOT going to bring him down on top of me. So I made it back up, looking behind me for those CC TV cameras, but oh yeah, we’re in the U.S.A. now. Brenda got my bag for me, and we walked to the next step which was customs.
After the fruit-sniffing beagle had found the apple in Brenda’s bag, the customs agent put a mark of some type on Brenda’s custom declaration card. So when she went through customs, she was apparently identified to be sent to a special line. Since we were traveling together, the agent said to me, “You can go with her.” We walked down to another scanner and put our bags through. Brenda’s went through fine (her apple having been previously confiscated), but my carry-on showed TWO APPLES. The agent said “You have TWO APPLES in here.”
I lamely replied “I do?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“I couldn’t quite remember.”
“You couldn’t REMEMBER!!!!!!!?” (Seriously?)
So he opened my bag, took the apples out, gave my passport to another agent who entered my name into the computer. I suppose now I’m marked forever as a FRUIT SMUGGLER! But we got to go through. When I got home, I looked up some things on the internet and found out I could have been fined or even ARRESTED. That was really, really dumb, Laura. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry. I will never do that again! (For those of you who are not ex-RCs, that’s the start of the Act of Contrition.)
Well, once we got through that, we were officially in the U.S.A., Chicago to be precise and went outside to the curb to wait for our shuttle to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. And that’s for the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment