We left home on Wednesday around noon. A friend from church, Merlin Miller, drove us to the airport. We got to O'Hare airport in Chicago with plenty of time to spare. We were able to bypass the regular check-in line because of the "unusual" size of the two storage tubs we were checking in. Note for future travelers, we used the 25 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck tubs. Technically I think they're a few inches over the L + W + H limit but I'm pretty sure the weight is the only thing they check unless the size is obviously too big. We were able to watch the TSA guys send the tubs through the scanner and then they fastened the zip ties. We then made our way to the gate and had a few hours to kill. After a some anxious waiting, we finally boarded and took off for London on time at 6:00 PM.
We flew on United Airlines from Chicago to London. This flight had the TV's in the seatback right in front of you. Those are great because you can pick what movie you want to watch or you can flip to the flight tracker and see where you are at on the flight path. Another note for travelers, take your own headphones along. The ones the airlines provide you aren't good, as Monica can attest to. The first movie I watched was Taken. Good stuff! After watching a movie and eating supper I started realizing that I better get some sleep or I'd be in trouble the next day.
Day 2 Thursday
Neither of us got a lot of sleep on the flight over, maybe 4 hours +/-. We got into London at 8:00 AM London time which was 2:00 AM at home. After we got through customs, we took the Heathrow Express train into central London. For the rest of the day we took a combination of the Original Red Tour Bus and the Tube (subway) around London. It was sort of like one big final date before we added Jeremiah to our family.
We saw most of the big highlights in London; Big Ben, House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace (we caught a bit of the changing of the guard), and a whole bunch of other things. We also ate two of the staple meals in London. I had fish and chips at a pub. I guess what Monica had would be chicken sandwich and chips. We also had afternoon tea with a scones.
Big Ben
Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace
Fish & Chips
Chicken & Chips
By early afternoon I was starting to hit the wall. We ended up walking around in Hyde Park for awhile. We found this really cool tree that (see picture below). After walking around awhile, we then decided it was time to head back to Heathrow. When we got back to the airport we went over to Terminal 4 and made a reservation at the Yotel for the layover on our way back home. Then we went to Terminal 3 to check-in for our Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa.
Funny Tree
Standing under Funny Tree
We had a mini-scare when we checked in at the Ethiopian Airlines counter. They only allow one carry-on plus a personal bag and the carry-on can't be more than 15 lbs. We each had a duffel bag and a backpack. Somehow my backpack was ok because I had a laptop in it, thus it was deemed a laptop bag. Monica's backpack, while smaller and weighing less than mine, wasn't ok because it didn't have a laptop. Make sense? The woman at the ticket counter thought we would have better luck if Monica's stuff was in a purse rather than a backpack. So we had to do a little rearranging because they weigh your carry-ons when you enter the boarding area. We managed to spread the contents of Monica's backpack between our two carry-on duffel bags, Monica's purse, and my pants. It's a good thing I wore Cargo pants! I don't think my pants would have fit under the 15 lb weight limit if they had weighed them separately. The pockets were stuffed with snacks, a digital camera, and a video camera. I felt fairly stupid (and like my pants were going to fall down)!
Fortunately when we went through the boarding area they didn't say anything about Monica's purse or my backpack. They only weighed our two duffel bags and those both were ok. PTL! The same woman who had given us our tickets when we checked in was the one who let us through the boarding area. Fortunately she was very nice to us. While we were waiting to board the flight, I spotted another couple around our age that was on our flight and I told Monica I thought they were going to Ethiopia to adopt too. More on that couple later...
When we boarded the plane, we hit the jackpot and discovered we were assigned to the exit row. Sweet! We're talking serious leg room people. I fell asleep and never even found out when we took off. Monica woke me later when they were coming around for supper. After supper I went back to sleep and slept right through the stop we made in Rome. Evidently the stewardesses came around when we had landed in Rome and was very insistent that everyone unbuckle their seat belts while they were refueling. Monica managed to unbuckle mine without waking me and then buckled me back in at take-off. Thank you dear!
