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Published: February 5th 2009
Photo 1
Sign outside of the airport where the buses stopped. Al loved it.Our flight took off at 8:30 at night from Newark. I was too excited/ anxious to sleep so I decided to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. If I had known how hectic the day would have been I would have rested while I could instead. Thirty minutes before we land, the pilot announces that the weather had turned for the worse in London and we were going to have to land at a different airport, Gatwick. Considering this airport was 50 minutes away from Heathrow, chances of making our connecting flight, which by that point was in an hour and a half, were slim. Still my mood was light since our plane had been the last one to land in Gatwick before all the terminals were full, so I considered myself fortunate. That quickly changed however once getting in the airport. Almost immediately after getting into customs, I realized I lost my passport. It must have fell out of my coat pocket while I was trying to manage moving 100 lbs of luggage around. Alfred went off to hopefully find it while I went through bouts of panic while standing guard of the luggage. But he did find it, while passing a
Photo 2
View of the snow in London woman on staff who happened to have the passport in her hand. Lucky break. Now with the passport hanging around my neck, we get on line for the ticket sales to get on track for another flight to Rome. Turns out this line twists and turns over most likely half of Gatwick. I talked to a few people by me, other students going abroad, a priest, a man who was trying to help us, and even an Italian ice skater who I am now friends with... this helped pass the time, but it still took over eight hours of standing in line. All the while, more flights keep getting canceled and the chance of getting any flight that day looked very dim. By the time Alfred and I got to the ticket sales, there was only one ticket left... and two of us. The day just kept getting better and better. So British Airways gave us accommodation for free food for dinner and breakfast, place to stay and a bus pass so we could get to Heathrow the next day. So finally after going on over 30 hours of no sleep I get to rest hoping the next day is
Photo 3
Heathrow airport better.
It isn't. After taking a bus to Heathrow, we get in and find out that all the flights to Rome were canceled. So its back to another long line, but after two hours of waiting on line in Heathrow (which was a mess) we realized that we might not get a flight since so many people were a head of us and there was only one in Gatwick that left for Rome. So luckily my dad booked us a flight and we hopped back on a bus to Gatwick. Talk about going in circles. After staying in the airport for hours, we finally got out of London at 8 at night. And after that experience I dont think I will be wanting to go back any time soon.
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Laura Sahyoun
non-member comment
London's Disneyland
Mom and Dad prepared you for this when you were little,remember the waiting line at Disney to see the KING KONG attraction!!!Oh better, the 2 hour wait for the 1 minute Dumbo ride! etc...lol