Greetings From Heathrow International Airport

Hello from Heathrow. I'm in the midst of my 4.5+ hour layover in London right now. The first leg of the trip went quite well. I must say, I have become a big fan of Virgin Airlines - the seats are roomy, there is plenty of leg room, the food isn't half bad (considering that it is airplane food), and the inflight entertainment is great. But first, let me tell you about packing...

Let no one ever accuse me of packing light. I don't know how to do it and I will probably never learn. (Thanks Mom!) My mom taught me how to pack (she's going to love this) when I was little. She'll deny this of course - and she'll probably say I don't know how to pack too - but it's true. When my brother and I were little we had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle suitcases that went with us everywhere (until the handles ripped off, but by the time that happened I think we were ready for "big boy" suitcases). Most of our trips consisted of going down to San Diego to visit my grandparents, so it was only a 2 hour drive from home - what I would basically consider a day trip now. If we were going for 3 days she's always tell us to pack for 5 "just in case something happens." Looking back, I don't know what on Earth could have happened that driving home couldn't have fixed (maybe an earthquake, but even then, is it going to take me 2 days to get home? Probably not). But these early lessons in packing have not been helpful, especially when trying to plan on living in a different country for 9 weeks. One of my friend did the math and that's like packing for 6 months in Dustin-packing-time.

So upon arrival at the airport, I checked my bags in - but before I could do that this woman that worked for Virgin Airlines made me weigh my carry on. WHO WEIGHS CARRY ONS?! This was the first time I ever had to do this. She told me that it needed to be no more than 13lbs. Well, in my mind I was laughing and saying "Well shit! There is no way this bag of rocks is going to be anywhere near that." Sure enough, my bag weighed in at an amazing, wait for it, 25lbs. Now before you start wracking your brain trying to figure out what I could possibly have had in my bag that weighed 25lbs, let me finish the story. The exchange went something like this:

Woman: What's in the bag?

Me: A laptop.

Woman: A laptop doesn't weigh 10lbs.

Me: Oh it does! And I have some books too.

Woman: It needs to be 13lbs.

At which point she shoos me away and tells me to come back when it meets the weight requirement. At this point, I still had my duffel bag and garment bag with all of my business clothes for working at the Commission. So, with a duffel bag strapped to my back, with a garment bag in one hand and my inappropriately weighted carry on, I waddled over to a nearby bench and began to unpack my carryon. I took out things that I knew I'd have to take out for security - my laptop and liquids - and the books I brought for the trip (Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat & Crowded & Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, my travel book, 1 pocket sized crossword book, 1 pocket sized brain games, 4 dollar store crossword books). So now, with a duffel bag on my back, a garment bag slung over one shoulder and my half emptied carry on slung over the other, and an armful of books and my laptop, I shuffled back to the carry on Gestapo for another weigh in.

This time, my bag came in still slightly over weight at 14.4lbs...

Time for next flight to Jo'burg. I'm going to backdate the rest of this post and then have a current update when I get settled in at the B&B, so check back later to find out what happened.

EDIT: 8:30PM SAST 6/7/10

So where was I...the bag was still overweight at 14.4lbs. She looked at me and said that was OK. (OK?! What kind of rule is that?! You said 13lbs before and now you are telling me 1.4lbs is OK. Let's start putting things back in there until you tell me to stop. I thought it was OK at 25lbs myself.) At which point the following exchange takes place:

Woman: OK. The bag is OK.

Me: OK. Good.

Woman: (Looking at my laptop clutched in my right hand and my stack of books cradled under my left arm.) What are you going to do with those?

Thinking to myself: Um, putting them back in my bag the way I intended them to be the second you walk away?

Me: Taking them on the plane. (What the hell else did she expect me to say? Oh, my bag isn't 13lbs, I think I will just leave all of these things here with you. Not going to happen.) (I don't think she appreciated my determination to get these items on the plane. She looked at my items and gave me a very dirty look, to which I responded.) The website says that I can take suitable reading material on the plane with me. (How that included my laptop and a stack of books, I'm not really sure, but I wasn't giving up.)

Woman: (I could tell on her face that in the span of 3 minutes I had already made her job so much harder and she was fed up with me.) Wait here! (And she scurries off through a "Authorized Personnel Door" and suddenly pops up behind the ticket counter before scrambling back to me.) Here. Put those in here. (As she hands me a flimsy black cloth Virgin Atlantic tote.)

So I put my stuff in there and waited my turn in line to check my duffel bag and garment bag. Now, I may not have packed light, but I did pack lighter than some (hard to believe I know). As I inched closer to the ticket counter, I noticed a group of 3 young women unpacking about 20 bags. Some of the contents were being dumped into a large brown cardboard "Public Storage" box, probably a 24x24in box - it was pretty big. I was amazed by what I saw coming out of these bags - an X Box 360, X Box games, a Nintendo DS with games, piles of clothes, and some DVDs. My only guess is that they recently robbed a Toys R Us and were attempting to flee the country. Although, it probably would have been quicker to head for Mexico or even Canada with how slowly the line was moving at the point.

Finally, I reached the ticket counter, had to pay an extra $60 for my garment bag (by far the most I've ever spent on a second bag. Who prices this space anyway? Can I offset the cost by putting advertisements on my luggage so it can serve as a constant message for everyone in the terminal when my baggage is finally being unloaded and awaiting pick-up? If nothing else, it would make my bag easier to see and harder to steal. "Hey! Stop that guy with the Coca-Cola ad! That's my bag!" Alas, for now that isn't a possibility.)

From there it was off to the security line. I've never had a problem going through security. Don't get me wrong, I have seen ridiculously long lines there before, but relatively speaking it all moves fairly fast. Having flown more times in the past 2 years, I had the system down cold. Take off the jacket, stuff it inside your carry on before you get to the front, have your bag of liquids ready to go, and be ready to put your laptop in a separate container. Since all of this was still in my gift from the bag Gestapo, it was no problem. I got to the front of the line threw everything into bins and walked confidently through the metal detector like the old pro I felt like.

TSA Officer: Sir, can you take off your shoes please?

(DAMN! Rookie mistake.) I sheepishly scurried back to the conveyer belt, kicked off my Rainbow sandals, and wedged them between my bag that was being examined and the bag behind me, hoping that they would magically reappear on the other side of the machine and did not disappear into x-ray oblivion never to be seen again.

Once through, I went through my usual airport routine - go to the nearest magazine shop and buy a bottled water, then wait patiently for my plane to start boarding. Once we start boarding, it's time to go to the bathroom one last time, or in my case one last time and then 5 more last times. I'd go, check the progress of the boarding line (oh, not my turn yet?), and then walk back and repeat the process again until I was one of the last groups to board. I attribute this to several things. Like most things, I think part of it can be blamed on my parents. There isn't a kid in the world who has had to go to the bathroom and hasn't been yelled at by a frustrated parent that they "should have gone before you left the house!" We know that! But that doesn't change the fact that I need to go right now! At least with a car, it doesn't matter where you are - you can always pull over and water the local flora and fauna. You can't really do that in an airplane. Those stewards and stewardesses are quite adamant about that fasten seatbelt sign. They get pretty mad when you don't follow the rules.

Also, there is no telling when that light will go off and you'll be able to go again. Or, in today's age, what if I get stuck on the tarmac for hours and the fasten seatbelt is on. What if the plane has a bumpy landing? All of those things do not bode well for an already full bladder on an airplane.

And my final justification is, why would I want to be one of the first people on the plane - it's not going to make me get off the plane any faster and no matter what, I'm going to have to wait for that one jackass who likes to be the last one on the plane because he has to go to the bathroom so many times before he can get on. I prefer that jackass to be me. People may be mad that I'm the last one, but at least I will be prepared to battle that fasten seatbelt sign for a few hours if need be.

The flight to London was very smooth. The captain told us that they were going to be able to do it in 9.5 hours. I'm going to call "BS" on that one captain! My itinerary says 10.5 hours. Now I know we're going through 9 time zones and most of us will be sleeping throughout the flight, so we won't know what the heck just happened, but don't try to pull a fast one on me. I know what time we're getting there, I can do the math, and quite frankly it scares me if you can't. I ignore the captain's dubious addition efforts and chalk it up to wanting to impress the passengers and crew with how fast his airplane can go.

For airplane food, Virgin Atlantic isn't half bad. For dinner I had beef stew with mash (which is British for mash potatoes. Somehow just calling it mash doesn't make it that appealing), a dinner roll, bread pudding, salad with Chinese dressing, and a water. It was quite good. I did not think I would like the bread pudding (it looks quite funny, almost like its trying to scream "Don't eat me!"), but it was pretty good.

Virgin has an extensive inflight entertainment system, which I did not really take advantage of. After dinner I watched "Jennifer's Body," an extremely hokey horror flick that was actually entertaining - I would never pay money to see it, but it provided some entertainment before I fell in and out of sleep for the rest of the night. I did not sleep very much - maybe 3 hours - so I don't know why I didn't watch more movies than that.

In the morning, the crew served bagels and what looked like breakfast croissants with ham, egg, and cheese. I've never been a big breakfast person, especially not at what feels like 7am when I haven't hardly slept, so I politely declined my meal and would opt for airport food instead (which turned out to be the most expensive meal at T.G.I. Friday's I've ever had - $17.50 for fries, an appetizer, and a diet Coke). Normally I watch out the window when a plane lands, but since I was in the middle row of the plane, I wasn't paying much attention to what was going out the window. Because of this, the landing definitely caught me off guard and I practically leapt out of my seat when I heard the thundering sound of the the wheels coming into contact with the tarmac. I definitely was not expecting it when it happened.

Upon landing, I had to go to Terminal 3 where my next flight would be leaving from. Despite never leaving the airport, they make you go through a security checkpoint again. Now, I think this is ridiculous - what could I have possibly acquired in the airport terminal that would not be allowed through security? Well, at the checkpoint my 1L bottle of water wasn't allowed through, so, like a freshman being hazed during his pledge semester, I pounded 2/3 of the bottle of water in one breath and upon coming up for air I told the security guy to toss the rest for me. Apparently the British hate American water, so they don't let it through. One thing I will say about British airport security though - they don't make you take your shoes off. I understand that the whole shoe bomber thing was a big deal in the United States, but really, how much bomb material can be packed into flip flops? I would venture to say none whatsoever. After making it through security, the waiting game began.

Not much else to say at this point about this leg of the trip except that I did not really like Heathrow - too many people and everything is way overpriced. 4.5 hours was more than enough to spend there. And that brings you up to date on that.