Tuesday, July 19-Wednesday, July 20

(We’re going to call this one long day)

Getting to the airport is easy; saying goodbye to England is not. We hop on the Heathrow Express and watch the city fade, then we’re in the land of security and brightly lit perfume shopping hell. After some amusing people watching at security—one woman had either never flown before or was very unaware, because she didn’t have her liquids in one container, didn’t know she had to take her jacket off, and tried to slide her suitcase through on the rollers without putting it in a bin—we take a spin through a few last stores. We get two more books (yes, I know, so many books that it’s probably going to take me forever to read) and some more Cadbury, naturally. Getting to the gate and onto the plane is a breeze; this is old hat for us now. Our seats, again, are Economy Delight, and we settle in. 

Takeoff, and the island disappears beneath us. London fades, the time and the miles go on, and we’re returning. I don’t really want to. I still have time before the school year starts, and I have Alaska(!!!), but it’s still hard to see the end of a journey you’ve been looking forward to for so long. It’s been really nice to see so much and to be with Mom, to watch her excitement and her travel confidence grow. 

It is quite a nice flight, though. I start reading The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, one of the books I got in the airport, but don’t get very far. I write, I sleep, I listen to music. I feel like most people would be watching the large selection of movies, but I am not really a movie person and I don’t feel like it. They serve us lunch, and a snack, and coffee at last, and, later on as we’re almost landing, a little box labeled “Mile High Tea.” Precious! Inside is a scone, a tiny container of Cornish clotted cream, and a tube of jam. One last cream tea. 

We land in JFK, get through the extremely long customs line, and set about finding a nice spot for our six-hour layover. We settle on a brewery that has some good looking food. As we’re starting to eat, we get a notification that our flight has been delayed until 10:54 PM—four hours later than scheduled. Not long after that, there’s another notification that it’s been completely cancelled. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a flight totally cancelled on me, and I sort of don’t really know what to do first. Mom suggests that it might be better to talk to someone directly, which I start to see as very wise once I begin looking through the app and finding only flights the next day that have two or more connections. The line for the in-person customer service desk is extending all the way down the hallway, though, suggesting that ours was just one of many flights that got cancelled. I end up talking to an agent on the phone, and she rebooks us for a flight tomorrow morning from LaGuardia.

Okay, one thing sorted. Now we have to figure out a hotel for tonight. So we take our stuff to the nearest two available seats and both start searching. We’ll find one, start the booking, and get to the end only to realize that it has been reserved. Things start filling up, properties that were there minutes before start disappearing, and then both of us have very little phone battery left and no charge on the external battery, and the chargers at this seat aren’t working, so we have to switch seats, and oh my god it is so expensive, but I’m scared that we won’t find anything so I panic-reserve a Hyatt in Flushing. 

Mom goes to find some iced tea and a bathroom, but she comes back empty-handed saying, “I’m done, let’s leave.” Hard same. We take our bags and navigate to the ride service pickup area outside. I book a Lyft, and it tells me the driver is there, but neither he nor the car in his profile is anywhere to be seen in the area. I cancel, rebook, get accepted and then dropped by about four people before one finally accepts, finds us, and takes us to our hotel. He doesn’t talk the whole way, bless him, and when he drops us off at the Hyatt I can’t even really form coherent words to thank him. I fumble with my bag, Mom gets out, I totally forget to shut the door, and he drives off. Inside, more or less the same thing happens wit the guy working the front desk. “Check in,” I manage to say, and then garble the name, and then there’s an issue with the card but contactless payment isn’t working, and oh my god, I just want to get to our own little quiet place, and Mom tries a different card and it works, thank God, and then we get the keys. 8 floors on an elevator, open the door, and it’s massive. It’s more apartment than hotel room, with two bathrooms, a big living room area, and, thank God again, a massive king-sized bed. I take a shower, set an alarm, and crawl in. Finally, rest. 

One moral of the story is that you should not, for any reason, fly into or out of JFK if you can help it. I’ve since heard from two different sets of people that they had flights cancelled at JFK too: Monica’s parents were stranded for two days coming home from Scandinavia, and a couple from my run club was stuck for four days after coming back from Amsterdam. Our little delay looks like nothing in comparison to this. Thankfully, it all works out. But yeah, if you can avoid that airport, I would.

In the morning we have breakfast and then get the free shuttle to the airport. There are two women on the shuttle with us that I presume to be mother and daughter. We’re passing Citi Field, where the Mets play, which has a very large and prominent Citi Bank logo, and the mother asks the driver, “Is that field sponsored by Citi Bank or something?” Mom and I share a look. 

“Can we go back to Europe?” she asks quietly. 

LaGuardia is looking impressive these days, especially compared to JFK. It’s all shiny and nice lighting and very efficient security. We walk to our gate, and we’re a bit early so we settle in to people watch. The flight before ours is to Wilmington, North Carolina, and we watch as it boards. The gate attendant makes several calls to people, first just a page, then a last call, saying that the boarding doors are closing. It’s over, they close the door. A few moments go by. A group walks up, headed up by a woman with long hair, holding a drink in her hand. She doesn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. She walks over to the closed door, clocks the plane, and asks, “What’s going on, why aren’t they boarding?”

The gate attendant just looks at her blankly. “Boarding is done. It’s 9:15. The door is shut.”

The woman cries in alarm, “How can the door be shut? I see the plane, it’s right there! Can you radio them to open the door?”

Mom and I share another look. 

“Ma’am, boarding is over. I can’t do anything about it.”

“Why would they board early?” the woman continues, her voice becoming more irate. “That makes no sense. The flight is at 9:20, it’s 9:15 right now, we ARE early. We’ve been here for two hours!”

She’s sent a few gates down to a customer service desk, and Mom follows her discreetly, bringing her book as cover, so that she can hear how it goes down. She reports back to me afterwards. The result is extremely disappointing: apparently they booked the woman and her traveling companion on another flight later that day, without a fee. 

I’m extremely over people in airports by now. People in general, really. 

There had been an offer at check-in to volunteer to take a later flight. The gate attendant announces this opportunity again, and mom and I zoom up to the podium. $400 for an extra three hours? That’s so worth it! She tells us to wait until the very last minute in case she needs to bump us. But by the time everyone else has boarded, it turns out she doesn’t need us to take a later flight after all. Bummer. I could already smell that new plane ticket. 

Short flight. Nothing new. All is smooth, and we land in Cincinnati without incident. Home. It’s smoky because of the fires in Canada, but not as bad as I was expecting. It feels like we never left, and yet it feels like we have been gone for a small eternity.

I think back on all we did over these four weeks, all the countries and corners of the world we got to see. It’s kind of amazing when you put it all together. We hardly stopped at all; it was one continuous adventure. From our start in London, to the cliffs and music of Galway, from the history of Belfast and the beauty of the Giant’s Causeway to kissing the Blarney Stone, from the West Highland Way to Edinburgh, from London again to cute little Mousehole, and now all the way here. Travel is magic. It’s also an enormous privilege. I feel so fortunate and grateful to have had the chance to see these places and experience what we did. And I’m so glad I was able to experience it with my mom, to share the little moments and the big sights and the people-watching gems and the stories. 

It’s time to prepare for Alaska now! And after that, the school year. And after that, the vast, clifflike expanse of the future. But for the moment, let me linger on the green and the waves. I still look right when I cross the street. I still expect to hear English accents everywhere I turn. I look for Revels in the store and am disappointed. Soon these vestiges will fade, but not yet, and the memories will always remain. 

Thanks for following along on this adventure. Stay tuned for the next. 🙂