Where the White Things Are: The journey begins

*I wrote this at 3:05am somewhere over the north Atlantic, when we were 7 hours in to our 9.5 hour flight to London. Then I edited it at 4am London time (8pm Sunnyside time). I can't tell if it makes sense, but I wanted to get the tale of our first full-family international flight written down before the jet lag wears me out too much. At the time I edited this, it had been 37 hours since we left home, and I had slept less than six of those hours. So good luck.

We left home at 7am on Tuesday, July 16th. Dan (Jeff's dad) drove us 3 hrs to Seattle in our van, bless him. He stopped and went on a hike in the mountains on his way home so it wasn't all boring business for him. The Seattle airport was super crowded! We stood in line to check in for a while, and were alarmed to discover that our flight time had moved up 40 minutes, from 12:10 to 11:30am! I realized that I forgot to save the updated email with our flight time change waaaay back in like October. When we finally got our boarding passes, it was one hour till boarding began. "It'll be a close call," I thought, "but we'll make it ok." Then we rounded the corner and saw the massive fast-growing slow-moving security line. Nope, that was not going to work. We'd miss our flight! Desperation, determination, and deliberation set in. Jeff elected me to go seek assistance "because they'll be nicer to you."

I left the family in the security line and went on the hunt. An Airport Help staffer directed me back to the United Airlines check in desk, to ask for a note giving us special permission to go through the Premier security checkpoint. The line at the desk was too long, so I buckled on another layer of courage and power-walked confidently (quaking on the inside) to the line-free first class desk.

"I'm traveling with my family, including three kids and we didn't know our flight time had changed and now we only have half an hour till our boarding time, and I was told to come here to get a note for permission to go through the premier security line."

It was not the time to worry about run-on sentences. I paused and allowed more of my desperation into my eyes. The airline worker said she really couldn't do anything about it, to which I reminded her of my three kids and how late we were. Standing quietly and waiting for her humanity to kick in was worth my internal squirming. After a little hemming and hawing, the airline worker wrote a note on one of our boarding passes and handed them back to me, saying "you can try this. It may not work, but it's all I can do for you. Take this to the Premier Access security line and see if they let you through."

I thanked her profusely (and quickly), then plunged back through the crowd and found the same Airport Help staff guy in his blue best uniform and asked him to lead me to the Premier line. I was not going to waste time searching for it on my own! We picked up the rest of the fam on the way. The surly guy at the entrance to the premier line eyed us suspiciously for a few seconds and then waved is through with a long-suffering sigh and irritated eye-roll. Trying my best not to absorb his reluctance and blatant irritation as a personal insult, I led my family into the short premier line. I could hardly believe it had all worked! I felt a little guilty and in awe of my audacity, barging around first class check-in and premier security. We were through security in no time at all and the guy checking our passports was polar opposite to the cranky bouncer at the entrance. None of our bags were pulled for extra security searching-- another tiny massive miracle of the day.

Juggling four passports and four boarding passes is an exercise in finger dexterity and acrobatics! Jeff and Leslie handled their own passports, but I had all three kids' plus my own passport. We had to scan each passport separately during check in, and the machine was so slow! Slow at scanning, slow printing all 12 boarding passes (one per person for each of our two flights). Leslie helped hold the passports while I matched the right boarding pass to each passport during security and boarding.

Once we had our shoes back on and electronics put away after security, we headed straight for our gate, which did not require a train. (wahoo, keep those miracles coming!) Our flight was boarding when we walked up to the gate. Our boarding group was announced a minute or two later. Cue a massive sigh of relief and post-stress/adrenaline shaky-hands.

We ended up with a 6 hour layover in San Francisco. When I went to the bathroom upon our arrival, I discovered that my period had just started. Joy. Heavy flow on a 10 hour flight is totally my idea of vacation. NOT. But we made it onto our flight!

In the San Francisco airport, we got a late lunch and eventually wandered over to see our friends the Kannelys arrive. They were heading to Hawaii and a few days before we left we discovered that our flights both went to SFO and landed within 90 minutes of each other. It was fun seeing fellow Sunnysiders in the San Francisco airport. We talked with them in the terminal for about half and hour, said bon voyage, (Jeff looked up how to say bon voyage in Hawaiian for their benefit) and then camped out at our gate for another 4 hours. The kids ran up and down the stairs and escalator nearby for a while and eventually settled down to play on devices and/or read books. Jeff and I were already feeling sleepy, and our transatlantic flight was still hours from boarding!

Since our flight departed San Francisco at 7:35pm, we didn't know if dinner would be provided. Every airline is different--we've had it both ways. So we got expensive airport food: refrigerated sandwiches. I'm ok with paying good money for good food, but refrigerated turkey sandwiches at $10 apiece was a tad painful.

After 90% of the San Francisco waiting was done, I had to be a militant courageous mom again before we boarded our flight. None of our seats were close together, so I asked for a seating rearrangement at the desk. Jeff didn't think it was allowed or possible to ask for seat changes and he was all for just asking individuals on the plane to trade. I did not want to leave our kids' first transatlantic flight to the mercy of overtired fellow passengers, so I took on the task of asking for seat changes. Thankfully the lady at the airline desk was very helpful and found us seats together with nary a grumble. No way were we going to go on a 9.5 hour flight with our kids and not be able to sit next to them! Jay, me, and Amber sat 3 in a row, then Jeff and Rose with a stranger sitting in their row's window seat. Grama Leslie sat on her own right in front of them. She even had an empty seat next to her! It all worked out quite well.

Amber was giddy with excitement when we boarded the plane and she saw that everyone had their own TV screen. The kids watched movies and cartoons for the first three hours or so and then they started dropping off to sleep. Rose dozed on and off but slept the least, probably less than an hour. Jay struggled with finding a comfy position so much that I told him to lay on the floor underneath mine and Amber's feet. He slept the most, with a 1 hour break wherein he tried to watch a show but gave up and returned to the floor. Jay slept for nearly 5 hours on the plane!

I had to turn Amber's screen off at 11pm so she'd fall asleep. She slept for almost 4 hours slumped in her seat before she started wiggling around and crying and asking for Jeff. We tried several sleep configurations on our row. At one point, Jay was on the floor, I leaned on the window, Rose leaned on me, and Amber slumped in her seat. I held Amber's hand and dozed while she slept and it was surprisingly soothing to me, for someone who doesn't sleep well while touching other people. Eventually I put Amber with Jeff and she calmed down. Poor girl was so tired, she didn't know what she was doing. Rose came back and laid across the seats in our row, switching back and forth with her feet or head in my lap. She finally was able to sleep for the two final hours of the flight.

As for me, I was exhausted and drowsy before we even got on the plane thanks to my brain waking up and trying to mentally organize my bag and our house at 3:45am. I achieved a new record of hours since my last bed-sleep on this trip! I was up for 32 hours, with about 90 minutes of broken dozing on the airplane. Somehow I actually slept a little bit! I have dozed in and out two separate times for an hour each-- my most Z's ever on a plane! It helped a ton. After my second doze-a-thon I felt dull-witted but awake, so I used the time to begin typing out this travel saga.

During our descent into London, we hit some turbulence and Amber got air-sick. She was sitting next to Jeff, and she puked all over herself 5 minutes before we landed! She had to sit there in her vomit for another 10-15 minutes while the plane landed and taxied. The minute we stopped I grabbed Amb and took her to the bathroom. Thankfully the plane had a handicapped size bathroom so we had a bit more space to change her barfy clothes. We were all feeling a little green around the gills when we finally walked off the plane. Customs, an 80 minute tube ride, and 3 block walk later and we arrived at our little skinny hotel, the Howard Winchester Hotel on Argyle Square.

Jeff and I took turns running right when we arrived this afternoon, and I'm so glad we did. It felt amazing to MOVE my legs after all of that sitting. I ran to and through Regent's Park, passing by St. Pancras Station, St. Pancras Church, British Libray, 221B Baker St., Madame Tussard's, Underground stations, red phone booths, and double decker red buses. We went out to Eddie's Fish and Chips for dinner—right around the corner from our hotel. They forgot to give me my mushy peas but I wasn't too sad because the fish breading was soggy in the middle so their mushy peas were probably not to great. Poor Leslie threw up in the Argyle Square Park on our way home from dinner! We're hoping it's just fatigue and weird foods. She went straight to bed. [update: Leslie was fine the next morning--phew!]

We reserved two rooms in our hotel, and Leslie was able to have her own room. Rose slept on the floor in our room to give sick grama some space.

Jeff and Rose fell asleep super fast and slept all night. Jay and Amber slept for 5 hours, and I annoyingly was only able to sleep 4 hours. When Jay and Amber woke up at 2:30am London time, we whispered together for a little while and then I let them play on electronic devices to pass the time. I pulled out my computer and finished up this entry.

On our way to Seattle (Dan and Leslie were in the front seat of our van)

Another excited selfie, standing in the airport before we discovered that we were late for our flight.

Sunnyside friends in San Francisco!

Waiting, waiting, waiting. 6 hours was a long layover.

Unprecedented legroom on the airplane--United Airlines was generous!

Rose and Jeff, with Leslie in front of them.

Oh the agony of trying to sleep on an airplane.

Finally off the last plane and riding the escalator down to the tube at London Heathrow.

Tube ride.

My run at Regent's Park, London:

I ran past several cricket games. It felt so perfect to be running in England and see pick-up cricket games at the park.

221B Baker Street has a Sherlock Holmes museum, which Jeff and I visited 11 years ago. It seems to have grown since then and there was a massive line curving down the street outside when I ran past.