Another Happy Landing, or The Bureaucracy Strikes Back - Part I

What follows is part one of the saga of our eerily smooth journey from Washington-Dulles International to the Steel City (Sheffield) over the course of something like 48 waking hours.

We awoke Tuesday morning after a sleepless night at Mary’s (Ashley’s aunt’s) house five minutes from Dulles and proceeded to quickly gather our four large pieces of luggage, two heavy backpacks, one small rolling hard-sided carry-on, two heavy jackets we plan to carry, and a purse. The night before, in an attempt to allow Ashley more weight in our combined bags, I decided to wear my heavy work boots and multiple layers on the plane. It turns out that United Airlines, the fine air-travel corporation we were fated to fly with, allows each overseas passenger two (2) free (!) bags! However, apparently these bags cannot weigh over 50 lbs., as anything from 51 – 70 lbs. will incur a crushing fee. I’m led to understand that the fee for a bag weighing over 71 lbs. is an astronomical monetary fee as well as a limb and a first-born included. Needless to say, we were continuously weighing ourselves and our bags on bathroom scales during the packing process.

Arriving at Dulles at 7:15 AM, I immediately began my epic duel with the small but heavy red carry-on hard-side. Not 50 metres inside the door we have to use a strap to piggy-back it to the top of one of our larger rolling bags. All is well for now. Little did I know, however, just how that little bag would come back to taunt me. We smoothly checked our bags, which apparently were NOT over 50 lbs. (according to plan) and flashed our new U.K. visas stickered inside our passports to the United women behind the counter. It’s then through the usual security and into a large “passenger lounge” that Dulles uses to dock to the side of the terminal and then launches itself, rather much like an escape pod, and drives across the tarmac to your destination, where it raises itself to the appropriate height and re-attaches with that hatch. Here we wandered for a bit, my back beginning to protest against the heavy weight of my pack. Something I don’t understand, as it only contains a heavy laptop, a second laptop battery, five textbooks, a jacket, and two-dozen pieces of smaller sundry, from iPods to two new packs of my favorite ballpoint pen that I’m convinced I won’t be able to find in England. We change $1000.00 each into British Pounds, which nets us a sad £510,00 each. Thank you, American economy. With little other issues, we board United Flight 922 and pack ourselves into our sardine ca – I mean, seats, and settle in for a 7+ hour flight.

At roughly 5:00 PM Eastern (now 10:00 GMT), we land at Heathrow after a sleepless and unproductive flight across the Atlantic. Unpacking ourselves from our seats and head through to Customs, where we get the first actual test to see if all that work we went through (see below) to acquire our U.K. visas was worth the work. We finally get to the head of the line/queue and, to my surprise, it’s simple and painless for both of us to get through the U.K. Border Agency minions and reach the large wall that is painted with “U.K. BORDER” across the top. We’re in!

We find our way to baggage reclaim, find our bags already off of the belts and on the floor next to one another, grab all four of them, and immediately the little red bag rears its angry Samsonite head again. We attach it to the top of one of the other bags, adding considerable weight, and then head down the long ramp to the Underground station. We get tickets to King’s Cross station and then hop on the Underground for a long slog from Heathrow, through the heart of London itself, and out the other side at King’s Cross. Incidentally, the little red bag does nothing to help when you’re trying to squeeze yourself and two large bags behind you through the handicap/stroller Underground turnstiles and then try to help the other through with theirs. Nothing at all. Except afford a good chuckle from the London cops.

Once topside again, we look across the street and, with the help of a stranger, get pointed down the road of our B&B. It’s upon the crossing here that Ashley learns that she’s going to have to start looking left first when crossing the streets here. At least in London they’re thoughtful enough to have painted on the road “Look Left” and “Look Right” as appropriate (No such luck in Sheffield, however). We head down Argyle Street and get to the Princess Hotel, where we ring the bell and are let in at roughly midnight local time. We get our key, leave our bags in the hall, and head out again to get food and look around (as we feel it’s only like 7:00 PM or so). Sadly, nothing much is open, aside from a Burger King and a McDonald’s, both of which we vow to avoid at all costs. After walking a bit further and turning down a side street, we find a “Q’s Chicken” which has the same logo as Chase Banks in the States and is run by Pakistanis. There we find amazing chicken kebabs and chicken tikka wraps, fries, real Fanta, and British Coca-Colas. After watching Arabic news for a while, we realize it’s about 2:00 AM locally and the owner likely wants to close, so we head back to the hotel to try to get some sleep. In the dead of night, I quietly (I hope) bring each bag up stairs one-by-one, stacking them around our bed and taking up much of the floor space. We watch a little bit of T.V. and try to fall asleep.