All ‘board!

We got Logan Airport in record time, thanks to the wonderful addition of the HOV lane directly to the Ted Williams Tunnel. After a quick goodbye to Florrie and Bob, we whisked into the terminal, breezed through check-in and headed to the security line. That was like navigating a line at Disney, where the line takes you to another line, which leads, yes, to another line.

With about two hours to kill, we decided to grab a bite at the Houlihan’s in Terminal E. We were told there was nothing to eat there, but the terminal was packed with its own food court and a restaurant. There was quite a bit of confusion at the entrance. No one was there to seat patrons and several people had jammed the opening. Finally, a host yelled out a name. Susan asked him to repeat it, and he said, “Natalie, party of two.” Susan immediately signaled herself as the missing Natalie and we were brought to our table. There we were greeted by James, our special needs waiter. He provided a great floor show, by repeated everyone’s order loud enough for the whole dining room to hear. Susan, er, Natalie, and I heard that the man with the barbecue chicken salad didn’t get any barbecue sauce because the restaurant was out.

Afterwards we hunkered down in a chair waiting for our flight to board. Boarding went smoothly, but we were greeted by a grumpy Swiss lady in my seat. She insisted we sit in the other two seats in the row. I was not happy about this, and proceeded to wonder allowed why the diagram showed seat D as being next to seat H. That is when the Swiss lady took out her headphones. Before sitting, too, this lady further endeared herself to me by saying I had to put my small pullman in the overhead bin, as if I had never flown before. I turned to her, and less than politely said, “Thanks, I’ve flown before.”

It seemed all would quiet down once the flight got under way, of course, until the people behind us were pilly. Susan’s seat was broken, and reclined without notice during takeoff. This itself wasn’t a problem for the lady behind her until after the seatbelt lights went off, when she reached over and asked Susan to put her chair up. Wait. It gets better. After I put my chair back, her delightful husband asked me to put my chair up, too. I refrained from complaining back to him, that he was in his seat pocket so much I thought he was being fresh.

We landed, and I hadn’t slept a wink. Susan didn’t get much sleep either. I watched both Ocean’s 12 and Spanglish, although I had to watch several minutes of Ocean’s 12 on a nearby seatback screen because mine blacked out until I asked them to fix it.

Instead of taking a car transfer, Susan and I braved the Tube. Let’s say, the Tube is far better than the T in Boston. It’s cleaner, there’s more lines, and there’s more lines that actually traverse the city. Our journey from Terminal 4 started with a short bus ride to Hatton Cross station, and finished with a straight shot on the Picadilly Line to South Kensington. After a brief bit of confusion after coming out of the Tube, Susan and I found our hotel, the Regency, a couple of blocks away. It is a really nice hotel,
but this is not our room,
nor is this. More on the room in another post.

The first day, which will be told in greater detail later, was punctuated by moments of sleep, and highlighted by a delightful pub dinner of bangers and mash and a Guinness for me, and a steak dinner with Coke Lite for Susan.