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All good things come to an end. Thank goodness, the trip of a lifetime would end while we still had a few dollars left, could still limp along and still owned the shirt on our back.
The day of our return we “Ubered” through Monday morning London rush hour traffic to Heathrow Airport. I had thought New York City cab drivers were fearsome. The Pakastani, our driver, met every qualification.
Chip got our driver talking and when started he never stopped. He spoke five languages; it had taken him 12 years to get to England legally through Portugal and Amsterdam where he earned a college degree and became a British citizen.
“I came here for the best education in the world for my children,” he explained. “And what did I get? The schools now are flooded with Somalians who came into the country illegally and can’t speak English. I have to send my children to private school to get the education I wanted for them. That’s why I supported Brexit!” he added, his voice rising.
I nudged Chip to stop the conversation. Politics is a taboo subject when people raise their voices.
Too late, we heard why he had left Pakistan and all his struggles to receive a college education in Europe and start his own business in London. He owned two vans now; his brother drove the other and they served many accounts including Cunard customers because, yes, he had once worked on Queen Mary.
He launched into his frustrations with politics in England and his dislike for “woke” as we pulled up at the airport and helped us get all our luggage into the terminal.
“Here’s some money to help you pay for your children’s education,” said Chip, handing over a big tip. I sighed. It happens every time. Give an American a sad story of struggle to work hard and come out on top and you’re sure to get a big tip.
A line as long as a Texas fence was waiting to check us in that moved at the speed of…well, let me say I have seen snails move faster on Urbanna Harbor dock than this airline check in line.
I was too tired to stand so Chip stood for the hour waiting to check in with all our luggage. That’s when we heard the bad news. We had booked in February two seats in economy plus requesting an aisle seat, only to discover no aisle seats were available and we hadn’t even been seated together.
I had previously suffered from a blood clot from a long flight and I knew I needed easy access to the aisle so I could walk and certainly needed assistance of my husband seated next to me.
Tough. Neither request could be met, so — we purchased two business flight seats so we could sit together and have easy access to the aisles. The earlier image of that plucked chicken of which everyone takes a big bite of as she makes her way through the trip of a lifetime returned. But we had little choice. We forked over the extra cash.
The trip was long and exhausting but British Airways served delicious gourmet meals and as much wine as we needed to vanquish the pain of being plucked. Very considerate.
Finally, we landed at Dulles. I had never been so tired as I was at this very moment. Unfortunately, every other jumbo jet from a major city in the world must have landed at Dulles at about the same time because we faced a long wait in a line that snaked like a maze to get through passport control.
We stood waiting for well over an hour inching along before an immigration employee peered at us, as if we might have been dangerous people trying to sneak into the country with a fake passport, took our photos and compared them to our passport photos and allowed us back into our country.
“I think it would have been easier for us to have flown to Mexico and simply crossed over the border into Texas,” I said as we hunted for our luggage and moved on to customs.
The sight of two octogenarians on their last legs struggling along must have caught the eye of some kind soul in customs for he waved us through. Perhaps he did not want to deal with anyone dropping dead in their inspection line?
We pushed our way to passenger pick up and there was the magnificent sight of our daughter, Liz, waiting to take us home to Urbanna.
Rush hour traffic was horrendous and it took hours to reach Urbanna. We hugged “Dandy” and collapsed into bed. It was 2:30 a.m. London time. We slept like the dead and were surprised that we awoke the next morning.
Would I take the trip of a lifetime again? Stand in long lines, suffer delayed travel plans, spend more money in two weeks that anyone in their right mind should ever do, eat too much rich food and drink too much wine, suffer through more activities in any one day than any sane person should do, suffer seasickness, a five-hour time change going over to England and then again on return and walk until my legs begged to drop off?
Sure. Who couldn’t agree to go on the trip of a lifetime? But the 60th wedding anniversary celebration is in the past now and I’m home sweet home — never to depart again!
Conclusion)
©2023
Note: One Woman’s Opinion columnist Mary Wakefield Buxton will be taking a short break to recover.