US holiday part 1 - travel or how heathrow surplanted schiphol as nightmare airport number 1

It had been ten years since my last visit to the US. Although I never see myself permanently living in another country there are a few places on earth that I really miss when I am not there. It doesn't happen often that I find a place like that and

the feeling is not always consistent but it always comes back. And it makes me so happy to return to them. One such place is Glastonbury in the UK and another is Gettysburg in the US. There is something about Gettysburg that makes me feel at home. Weird for a battlefield I know. I also still consider myself a pacifist as well. Yet that place feels like home.

It took a bit of planning and saving for this trip. My financial state is not what it was a few years ago and these days I have to make choices on what I do. I saved up for this trip for a few years and decided it was doable in the off season. May turned out to be perfect. Lovely weather but not the high prices for airplane and airb&b that you can get in July or August. Also important I found a good friend willing to go with me and spend all days of the holiday doing something that involved the civil war. We nearly managed to spend one day not doing anything CW related, nearly but not completely.  😊

Saturday May 13th

We set up to go to Brussels airport very early in the morning. That is why I had travelled to Belgium the evening before. Not knowing how busy the airport would be we were not going to take any chances and of course ended up there much too early. ✈

The first flight went really well and we arrived on time at Heathrow. We had a five hour layover here and by now I had developed a nasty headache. Heathrow terminal 5 is not too big and there were not many shops and restaurants, as we did not know our gate yet we had to wait in a crowded and noisy waiting area. Those hours felt like days but thankfully the headache was starting to go away.

When half an hour before boarding started we finally got our gate we were in for a nasty surprise. There was a line forming to go to the gates that seemed to go on and on and on. There had not been any lines when we visited shops in this area earlier and we were pretty surprised. After a few grumbles we did find the end of the line and at first it was moving at a pretty steady pace. Until ... it wasn't. 

Someone from the airport suddenly rerouted us to what seemed a personnel only zone. A bit confused we all followed her and were in line for what turned out to be a freight elevator. At this time another employee had told us that the escalators going down to the gate area had stopped working and the elevator was undergoing maintenance. So into the freight elevator we went. 

Going down we ended up in the bowels of the airport. We followed the people in front of us as there were no signs anywhere. And we had to walk through a badly lit tunnel for what seemed like ages. By now we together with some americans were trying to see the humor of the situation and jokes kept us going. 

Finally we ended up in the civilized world again and reached our gate just in time for boarding.

[on the way back we found out there is usually a small train operating between these gates and the terminal. So probably that had broken down when we were there.]

The flight to Philadelphia was smooth. I did not even feel too cramped in my chair. By now we had already been awake almost 24 hours and feeling very glad to be at our destination. There was only customs to clear and then we would be collected by my friend's uncle.

Well in Europe it is often just clearning customs. You can scan your nice european passport and be on your way in minutes.

Not so in the US. It had been so long that my mind had kind of forgotten about the process. We were faced with a long long line of non US residents. But to be honest the line for US residents wasn't much shorter and did not move very fast either.

It took nearly two hours before we got through. You are finger printed and have your picture taken. I was by now so tired and sleepy that it was hard to register that the customs guy was actually very nice. Something we are told US custom people are not. 

We were finally on american soil and on our way!