Day One: Tight Timing for Tired Adventurers

Starting out on the 33 hour journey!

At the Heathrow Airport-just a couple hours away from being able to collapse at our new home!

Leaving St. Louis at Dawn

So we're here! We started very early Saturday morning (I did not go to sleep Friday night) when our good friend David Walker showed up at our house at 5:45 AM to take us to the train station in St. Louis. Unfortunately we left our poor house looking like a hurricane hit it, and my complete inability to leave dirty dishes in the sink for 10 weeks (inadvisable) made us VERY late. Poor Richard managed to hustle me out the door by 6:10 AM.  We got to the train station at 6:30 AM-got our tickets and sprinted for the platform.  Well, hobbled our luggage along at a respectable trot.
  Good Samaritan #1 number one showed up in the form of an Indian gentleman who carried my big suitcase to the train for me. We caught the train with about 45 seconds to spare, and settled in.  We took some great pictures en route, but managed to leave the camera connector cable at home.  I will post those when we procure a new cable. (It's a couple days later and we discovered our hosts had a card reader for Richies archaic camera, so here are the en route pics updated into this blog entry! Yay!

Richard just luvs to snap pics of me at the oddest times!

In case you can't tell, I'm supposed to be about to hurl the train at your heads like a super heroine

Almost missed the train for this one! We had to run for it!

We arrived in Chicago at Union Station about 1 PM, and it was a bit daunting to realize our journey had barely begun! Considering the pictures, I would say Richard looks a bit more 'daunted' than I.  We  took the bus from Union Station to the Chicago Booth Campus just off Michigan Ave. (No elevator at Union station, just a LONG flight of stairs up to the street for us and our luggage, seriously people, what century are we in!). Getting on the bus at the station we met Good Samaritan #2, a nice old guy from Springfield, IL who helped carry one of the big suitcases on the bus and all the way to the back of the (thankfully uncrowded) vehicle. We disembarked at the school and stowed our luggage in the handy lockers they offer weekend students for just that purpose. We ate the lunch we had packed (cleared out leftovers from our fridge :) and I worked online while Richard got us checked into the airline.  We had some serious panic happening for about 20 minutes as American Airlines told Richard they had no record of our flight. Aaaaahhhh!! Further research revealed that we had purchased through British Airways, and by linking through their flight we were able to get American to recognize us. Unfortunately, we also did NOT have seats assigned, like our travel agent told us we would, and there were NO seats left together on the plane. Big sigh.  Richard just got accepted onto the admissions committee at Chicago Booth, and had a 4:30 meeting (why we flew out of Chicago only 1 day before school started, lol).

After Richard's meeting ended at 6:30 pm we hustled out of the Gleacher center, across Michigan avenue and down 6-7 blocks to the Chicago subway, where we hopped a train for O'Hare.  We got to O'Hare about 7:30 pm (our flight was scheduled for 9:45 pm departure) and with great trepidation wheeled ourselves up to the ticket counter. I had packed us to the MAX- e.g., we both had massive ‘personal’ items filled with vacuum packed clothing bricks, among other sundries, and our carryon was technically a couple inches beyond the maximum acceptable carryon size limit. Richard had been given an extra shoulder bag with the Uchicago logo at his meeting which he was unwilling to part with, but we REALLY didn’t have an extra pound to squeak it in, both our checked bags were at the max limit as well. However, we passed muster without extra charges (Bag 1 weighed in at 51 pds exact, and Bag 2 was over at 153, which the employees very graciously overlooked) and continued on through security.  Which was a picnic, believe me, with 2 carryons, 2 overflowing ‘personal items,’ the 3 different coats I was wearing and Richie’s new shoulder bag.

We made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare, and placed some last minute calls.  Clever Richard also a couple at the counter upgrading to business class, so we went up there and asked the ticket lady if there were any seats together on the flight as of now.  There were and she reprinted us new tickets.  Imagine our glee when we arrived at our seats to discover we were on the aisle in the 1^st coach row behind business class, AKA, front of the plane with LOADS of footroom!

I totally crashed and slept most of the flight.  Richard alternating between sleeping, playing tetris (what next on a plane!) and watching X-Men:First Class. It was a pretty comfy flight, and the food wasn’t bad.  I’ve been having trouble with dry sinuses and the 7 hr flight didn’t help! Today has been pretty brutal with dehydration and sinus pain. (I finally gave up midway through the flight and just slept with Richard's coat over my head so I could preserve at least the humidity of my own breathing!).

Disembarking we discovered at immigration Richard had left his letter of student record behind, but Good Samaritan #3 the immigration officer lady was super-nice and just filled in some details by hand, stamped us up and off we went, officially in England.

We breezily passed up all the tourist traps (cabs and special trains to London for extra cash-ola, foreign exchange at high rates) feeling very traveled and wise as we located the main entrance to the London Tube (underground, metro, fo che, ‘L’, etc etc). Our world-wise composure slipped a bit at the machine to purchase tickets, when it rudely spat out all of our American credit and debit cards with frustrating consistency and terse obscure remarks and/or error message. Finally we found a machine that let us get a 1 way ticket into London, so we left the problem of getting the discount pay-as-you-go travel cards for another day.

The train into London took about 45 minutes, and Good Samaritans #4 and #5 helped us carry our luggage up and down stairs. (One of whom walked straight out of My Fair Lady and called us Luv and Guv’nor and directed us how to ‘get round’ the stairs by staying at street level.)  We deviated from our written directions to the ‘flat’ by trying to avoid a VERY long flight of stairs just at the tower of London, and so spent a few minutes lost in the St. Katharine’s Docks area, which is the general ‘development’ in which we will be living-very cutesy with upscale condos, cobblestones, and bridges over waterways in which various pleasure yachts are moored).  Very picturesque. Not so fun with wheeled luggage. Finally we got back on track with our directions- you know you’re in England when directions read “make a right behind the Dicken’s Inn- a nice pub next to the water.” Lol. Well, we did, in fact, locate our apartment just one street behind it- so we might just pop over for some fish n chips tomorrow!

The American couple we are renting from are super-nice, and the room was plenty big enough to move all our stuff in. We are mostly settled except for needing more hangers and washcloths, and are going to try and catch a few hours sleep tonight before school in the morning. (We totally crashed for a few hours this afternoon).  It’s 2 am here, so I’m signing off now.  More pictures of our new home, school and St. Katharine’s Docks tomorrow!

Lessons Learned:

1. You have to A.S.K. to G.E.T – Yay! Comfy Seats!

2. Always check in with the airline online or by phone at least 24 hours before your flight –especially if you have booked via a 3^rd person vendor!

3. While London is very similar to Hong Kong, assuming it is completely similar is a mistake. All underground/Tube stations are NOT handicap accessible and equipped with elevators and/or escalators.  Many, many only have flights of stairs.  ALL the ones we took today - as it happens.  And while, yes, hauling the luggage was brutal (1 50 pd bag, 1 70 pd bag, 2 30 pd carryons, 1 backpack, and 2 laptop/purse type bags) I am proud to say that we saved ourselves about 100 pds by our willingness to sweat, strain, and make like a mule.