Ignoring the Signs

Apparently someone does not want me to be in England. Or at least that is my conclusion after my 12 hours attempt to get into the country yesterday.

At first everything seemed to be going well. I checked in 24 hours in advance and got to print out my boarding pass. Once mom and I reached the airport it was obvious that something was up. First there is no listing anywhere for British airlines in the international terminal. There is every carrier from air Canada to Virgin Atlantic but no British Airways whatsoever. So on the second trip around to see if we missed it two minivans decide to stop in the middle of the road blocking both lanes and any chance of reaching the international terminal. Mom and I get forced down to the lower level where we have to travel under dozens of different overpasses and Bart stations just to get back to the airport. When I finally got inside the airport, things did start looking up and I was prepared to write it all off as nothing more than bad luck. I got to skip the very long bag check line and go right to the front of the online check-in fast bag check. Mom showed up after parking the car right after I finished checking in and I got to say goodbye relatively quickly and without much incident. In fact there wasn’t much of incident until I actually got on the plane.

The plane was set to take off at 4:50, but thanks in large part to bad paperwork and an overly complicated taxi rout we didn’t actually get up into the air until 7. It seems that the baggage loaders got the count wrong on that paperwork and so they had to recount the entire luggage contents of the 747 to straighten everything out. That took nearly an hour and a half and then our taxi rout took us all around the airport before putting the plane in a position to take off. So with all this we were about 2 hours delayed.

So despite the shadowy others best attempts to keep me out of the UK it appeared that I was actually going to make it. That was until we landed and they threw together a last ditch effort to keep me from entering. First they left an airport vehicle out in the middle of the tarmac so that the plane could not get to the gate. So we were stuck waiting for them to move the thing for another half hour. Then in their final attempt to keep me out of England, they locked the doors. That’s right locked the doors. I got to the end of the gate entrance just to find that the doors out had been locked. Fortunately I managed to sneak downstairs to a bus out of the tarmac that took me over to another terminal so that I could actually enter the country.


So despite some shadowy figure’s best efforts I did indeed manage to make it into England and eventually to my dorm room.