I HATE to fly!

Oh my goodness, did I mention that I HATE to fly? Not only does it make me a nervous wreck, but I just can’t stand bouncing around in a huge metal container that temporarily defies the laws of gravity. Debarkation in Barcelona was a breeze, we said goodbye to Stephanie (our wonderful steward), Ancel and Mariano (our waiters) and then our car service to the airport was waiting outside the port terminal for our bags. We got a brief tour of the city and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to make our flight. The lines for Iberia were VERY long and it took about a couple of hours to check in to our flight to London. We got the brilliant idea to check 5 of the bags right to Miami and 2 of the bags just to London so we would not have to carry all of the bags with us to the London hotel. My Mom even made friends with the guy next to her on the plane that gave her the name of a cheap car service to take us to Canary Wharf. Everything was going great. Then, Heathrow airport closed due to a gas leak in London – all heck broke loose. We were diverted to Paris! I already SAW Paris! The next problem came when we landed at Charles de Gaulle, they said that Heathrow was now open and as soon as the plane re-fueled, we could now go to London. Sooo, SEVEN hours later we landed in London to a mad house. Many planes were circling in the sky waiting for their turn to land. By the time we got our bags, the traffic was so bad, it took over 2 hours to get to the hotel. We were SO exhausted that we just decided to get room service and go to bed. The funny thing about London is that everything is CRAZY expensive. A small bowl of soup on the room service menu was over $15. It was good, but not THAT good. We were all so tired, that none of us really cared what the bill was, we just wanted to go to bed.

We woke up around 8:00am and got ready to catch our flight to Miami. Forgoing the $30 per person breakfast buffet, we decided to wait until we got to the British Airways club lounge in order to eat. We were able to get a small tour of London. We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the Tower of London, Tower bridge and even MI-6 (which I thought was REALLY cool). We got checked in at British Airways with no problem and I was able to purchase Internet access via T-Mobile for $20 for 24 hours. At least the connection was decent.

After landing in Miami, our bags never made it on the plane. Our plane was scheduled to leave Miami at 10:50pm, so we had a nice 4 hour layover waiting on the flight. At 10:45pm, they announced that our plane was there, they had a captain, but the flight attendants were stuck in Philly on the tarmac since 8:00pm. If they took off immediately, they would land and be ready to leave Miami at 3:00am! Now having flown for years, I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen. At 3:00am when the Philly plane landed, they would say that the flight crew had been awake for too long and they would be now able to leave at 6:00am with a different flight crew. Instead of "sleeping" in the airport waiting for them to cancel the flight, we opted to find a hotel and go on a later flight on Friday. Poor Peyton passed out cold in my arms and I had to carry him to the hotel. Oh well, I guess this is just one more day we get to spend on vacation!