In Transit

First post from Europe, woohoo!

I'm sitting in Heathrow Airport, having cleared security without any problems. I've actually got a good chunk of time to spare, despite the fact that my flight from Boston was at least forty minutes late--no tail winds, apparently. Curse you, tail winds! You're on my list.

Nevertheless, things have been fairly low-stress since I arrived at Logan yesterday. Before that, though, it was a different story. First I was unable to check in to my Virgin Atlantic flight to London because there was no record of me in the system. PANIC. Blind panic. I called the booking agent and was rather testy with him--which I'm definitely not proud of--but he figured things out for me (passenger name was supposed to be listed as Renee [last name] but was instead in the system as Reneed [last name]. Not even Renee D. [last name]? Really? I have to say, I might hate "Reneed" even more than I hate when people pronounce my name as "Ree-nee.")

Anyway, once I was assured that I would indeed be flying to London, I tried to make up for my earlier snippiness by repeating my earlier apologies and being super polite and appreciative. With that settled, Mom and I headed off to the airport.

We were sitting in crawling traffic on 93, so-close-and-yet-so-far from the bridge, when I noticed that my handbag was closing a little too easily. I mean, I'd jampacked that thing so it could barely close, and here it was, clipping shut without any problems. Something was missing.

It was my camera. My camera was NOT in my BAG oh my GOD, you guys!!!

I let loose a string of obscenities that were still not as strong as the ones I wanted to actually use (I refrained for the sake of my darling mother) and definitely freaked out, but did not go into blind, heart-hammering Panic Mode. My mom took issue with this evaluation. "You definitely panicked," she sniffed disdainfully, after I'd found my camera shoved part way under the car seat behind my feet. And yes, I panicked, but on a scale of one to ten, with one being, "Whoops!" and ten being  Wall Street on October 29, 1929, it was maybe a five or a six, whereas the plane ticket debacle was more of an eight.

Anyway, I breezed through security at Logan, ate dinner, had a brief moment of worry when I was paged to the gate desk for "important flight information" (my seat got moved...not an upgrade, much to my disappointment), and exchanged about $100 for 1500 Czech crowns so I can buy shuttle tickets and whatnot when I arrive in Prague. The flight itself was pretty uneventful: dinner, hot chocolate, three brief hours of attempting to achieve something resembling sleep, then breakfast. I watched some TV and did some writing. That's about it.

I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't keep all my Virgin Atlantic swag, though. They always give you an eye mask, ear plugs, a toothbrush, a teeny-tiny tube of toothpaste, and socks. I was sad to leave the socks behind--I have a pair from my last VA flight and they are the snuggliest, comfiest socks, especially for being free socks obtained from an airline. But I have to be really careful not to accumulate too much stuff, especially before my flight from Munich to Nice, which has really restrictive carry-on weight limits.



Well, my boarding gate info is about to be posted, so I'm going to see about that and then try to hunt down something for breakfast. (We ate on the plane, but the first listed ingredient in Virgin Atlantic Muesli Apple Muffin Tops is sugar, so I should probably find something that won't rot my teeth and slowly kill my digestive system.)

Until Prague, then!