The Armchair Traveller

It was going to be a very long day – 7 hours in a plane from London to Minneapolis, 4 hours waiting in Minneapolis, then another 2 hours on a plane from Minneapolis to Denver. However, Mum and Lynsey waiting at Denver airport for me makes all this travel worth it!

My day of traveling began when I left the house at 10am, I arrived at Heathrow airport at 11.15am, boarded my flight at 1.45pm and have been in the air ever since. Check-in at Heathrow was horrible, I felt totally picked on for being a New Zealander who happened to live in London. Security people wanted me to show proof of my UK address, wanted to know where I purchased my tickets for this trip, how long ago I purchased them, how I paid for them, and so on and this was before I had even checked in my suitcase! Once my bags were checked it was time to go through security and into the departure lounge. As always seems to happen to me I set off the metal detector alarms but rather than make me go back, remove my jewelery and walk back through the female security guard decided to feel me up and down and then sweep the hand-held metal detector over me to be completely sure that I wasn’t hiding anything! What felt like 10 minutes later I was finally free to go. This was an absolutely horrible experience which I hope not to repeat! The next annoying thing to happen was that I had over two hours to occupy myself in the departures lounge but I had no idea what gate I needed to go to when it came time to board my plane, and they didn’t announce the gate until about half an hour before they started boarding! This was so irritating as I didn’t really know where to place myself to eat, read and wait for my flight so I kind of felt really on edge until I was finally able to get on the plane.

Here is where everything finally come right and I realise that the universe is looking favourably on me going on this trip… My wonderful travel agent Letia had booked an aisle seat for me because that is what I wanted and when I got on the plane I was very pleased to discover that I actually did have an aisle seat, and even better, there were two empty seats between me and the next person so I had room to relax and spread out for the 8 hours of flying! And as an added bonus there was no one sitting in the seat in front of me either which meant that there was nobody pushing their seat back and taking up my free space!

I was flying on Northwest Airlines and I want to mention that I really enjoyed flying with this airline. The staff were friendly and the flight itself was really good (I had visions of the horrible journey I had been on from Hong Kong to London on Lufthansa last year but I was pleased to discover the complete opposite experience!) There were small TV screens on the back of every chair with a full range of entertainment options to keep you busy once we were in the air. Over the course of the flight I watched 3 films: Definitely/Maybe which was a romantic comedy and was kind of sweet; The Other Boleyn Girl which almost made me cry! It was a fantastic film; and finally Fools Gold which was an action-adventure treasure hunt kind of film and was good for light entertainment. When I wasn’t watching films I occupied my time by reading my book, flicking through a couple of magazines and listening to my iPod.

I was a good girl and drank lots of water on the flight to keep me well hydrated and alert and I have to say that I really enjoyed the food we were served. We got a packet of pretzels and a drink when we first got into the air. Lunch was called ‘Chicken Pasta’, which was actually a chicken breast, some rice with Parmesan cheese on top and some green beans, all coated in a sort of gravy sauce. It actually wasn’t that bad. This was served with a potato, lettuce, celery and apple salad, a bread roll and for dessert this chocolate sponge/mousse/profiterole slice thing which was also rather tasty. Also on the tray were some cheese and crackers which I put aside and ate a bit later when I was feeling hungry again. About 2 hours before we landed we got a snack – a roll with cheese and roasted vegetables (or turkey if you preferred) and a small tub of Belgian strawberry ice cream, yum

Overall it was a great flight on a nice airline and I look forward to flying with them again on the way back to London.

Arriving in Minneapolis was really easy, going through customs was easier than my check-in at Heathrow! Once I had passed through customs, re-checked in my suitcase and passed through security (without setting off any alarms this time!) I went for a walk to find my gate. It was an easy walk as I still had 4 hours before my flight to Denver even started boarding! At this point it is 6pm local time which by my body clock was after midnight London time and I hadn’t slept at all, in fact on the flight over I didn’t even attempt to sleep because it wasn’t night time and I just wasn’t tired. I decided to go all American once I found my departure gate and ended up having McDonald’s for dinner and then a bit later I got myself a Starbucks Coffee to keep me awake.

After sitting around reading my book and listening to my iPod it was finally time to board my plane and take off to my final destination for the next 4 days – Denver, Colorado. Again I was flying Northwest airlines and despite the fact it was a very full domestic flight it was still OK. I managed to finish reading my book and grabbed maybe 20 minutes of sleep before we were landing in Denver. It was the best feeling ever to step off the plane knowing that I was now in the same town as my mum for the first time in nearly a year! I had to get this train from my terminal to the main terminal were baggage claim was and mum was waiting for me when i got off the train – it was AWESOME!! I didn’t want to let go of her as we hugged a very long overdue hug!! We then went to the baggage claim area where Lynsey was waiting with their bags – it was great to see him too! Eventually we got into a shuttle and headed for our Hotel in Lakewood, West Denver. Unfortunately as it was dark (1.30am by this time) we missed out on seeing the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop to the city of Denver but we were so tired that it didn’t matter.

Once we were checked in we all got into bed, talked a little bit and then finally fell asleep. I was so excited to have survived my first solo international travel experience and the fact I had basically been awake for what added up to nearly 24 hours (at 2am Denver time it was 9am London time!) really didn’t matter because I was there and so was mum!

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