Going Home!

It's Tuesday night, 10:00 pm. Earlier in the afternoon I had booked a full-fare flight from Budapest to London for Thursday online...after trying 3 times and having my credit card denied. I didn't really have access to phone service here, so how do I call the credit card company? I tried it through my Gmail account, you can actually call a phone number through your computer - and it WORKED! It says .01 cents per minute...I'll believe that when I get the bill. Well, after about 2 hours I was able to book them.

Back to 10:00 pm. I decide to check on my confirmation email to make sure the deal went through. Instead I get the "I'm sorry, we were unable..." email. Yikes! Back to the drawing board. Finally at 11:48 pm I have different flights booked - at 10:45 the next morning. 2 hours early to the airport, 1 hour taxi ride, 1 hour to pack and get ready...leave 30 minute cushion just in case...we have to get up at 6! Nobody slept all night. 

Next morning we wait in the lobby at 7:00 am, drinking coffee, scrambling to use our last bit of wifi access to find a hotel in London on my phone. Expedia gave me a Holiday Inn right near Heathrow airport for $195, the cheapest available, so I booked it right as we were walking out to the taxi, hastily taking a screen shot of the address right as my wifi was cut off. Our flight out of London left at 7:45 am, so we had to stay the night.We pay about $35 on a 45 minute drive. Cabby tells us "there's about 5,000 cabbies in Budapest. 4,900 of them crazy." This created a lull in the conversation as we sat in silence, wondering if he was one of the 4,900. But we did end up at the right airport, so he wasn't all that bad. After wandering around lost for about 10 minutes, and waiting for about 1 hour, we are told that they don't have any record of our tickets. I leave daddy and the kids in a huddle around our luggage as I go in search of somewhere to try to purchase new tickets. After standing in another line for about 30 minutes I purchase tickets for 12:20 and have to pay $300 more than my original plan. But, it's a straight shot instead of laying over in Munich for 3 hours...so I guess it will be ok. Only 2 hour delay too - not too shabby. Can't you tell we are happy today? Poor kids...but I have to say they were wonderful travelers! Not one complaint, just bored and quiet, being good helpers.

Another FIRST: Gianna has been telling us "nem lehpuhleur, Ibolya" for 5 days now...as if she's saying she will not get on the airplane. But she also seems excited about it, and points to the airplanes in the sky whenever we see one, and she was awfully vocal when we drove into the airport and she saw planes everywhere. She was so proud to be pulling her own little rolling Little Mermaid bag behind her too. So when we got on that first plane, the first she's ever been on I'm sure, she was all smiles. 

We got to London with no more problems...except now we have to find our hotel. My last minute flight change took us to Luton airport, not London Heathrow. I have no earthly idea if this is anywhere near Heathrow, but I figured they were both in London so we'd be able to take some sort of ground transportation to where we needed to go. Silly me, thinking this would be easy. After clearing customs we look around the lobby for ground transportation. Do we rent a car, take a taxi, take one of the three different bus options? Is there a hotel shuttle? Well, at least they speak English around here!!! Thank God for that. I once again leave the weary travelers to guard the mountain of luggage in search of help. After asking at 4 different counters, I finally concluded that a taxi would be the cheapest option. "Cheap" being a relative term. It was the coolest taxi I've ever been in, and the most expensive at $150 for the 45 min ride. The bus would have been about $200. 

 I tried not to stress out as we drove on the wrong side of the road, but every time he turned a corner or made an exit I thought we were going to hit oncoming traffic. 

We made it to our London hotel at about 3 pm, so we had the evening to kill. Dinner at the nearby pub sounded good, and ended up being fantastic food, and we had free tap water with ice!!!! Praise the Lord for free tap water. We had "Honey glazed cumberland sausages, Melton Mowbray pork pie wedges, Wagstaff cure ham, piccalilli, and crusty bread" for an appetizer. Fish and chips, and a cheese tart to follow. And get this - FREE ketchup packets! I've gotten used to paying $.50 per packet. I love this place!

The next morning we catch the 5:00 am shuttle (only $18 for the 10 min ride) to Heathrow. There is a flight from London to Chicago at 7:45 that we want to try to catch. I say try, because we fly standby with employee benefits. There are 13 open seats, so we have a good chance. We end up getting 4 seats together, right up in First class. Score! 8 hours of luxury, and a chance to catch up on a little sleep. We've never been in First class before, so this was really a treat. 

Each of us had our own little "cubicle", with room enough for an extra seat for a guest to come sit and visit you. The chair swiveled 90 degrees and reclined all the way to flat so you could turn it into a bed. We each had a tv loaded with movies, music, tv shows, and video games. We got a sheet, blanket, pillow, and were given pajamas, socks, an eye mask with ear plugs, a toothbrush and toothpaste, lotion, chapstick, kleenex packet, and a pen in a little bag to keep. There was a menu with about an 8 course meal choices that we could order whenever we wanted, or split it up. Unlimited drinks of whatever kind. Free newspaper...I mean this was really getting spoiled. We each had a Bose noise cancelling ear phones to wear as well. It really made the 8 hour trip enjoyable and relaxing. A much needed retreat from the stress and discomfort we'd been through recently. Praise God for His unexpected blessings!

Then our fun little connection in Chicago where we were detained in Customs for about 15 minutes (we had a 1 inch thick package from the American Consolate that we had to give them, to be able to bring Gianna into the country). This was a little nerve wracking - what if something was missing, or went wrong...then what?!  Thankfully they gave our passports back and said "Have a nice day". Yes!!! She's officially a US citizen instantly!!

We literally ran through the entire airport to meet our connecting flight, where there were quite a few open seats so we already had seat assignments. (Thank you to Brenda and Jeremy, our flight angels). It was like the scene from Home Alone where they are running through the airport with frantic looks on their faces, bumping into people, and everyone looking at them funny. It was exactly the same scene, and we arrived at the gate out of breath and sweaty.  The sign told us it was going to be delayed about 30 minutes. In this case, praise the Lord for delays. 

We finally touched down at home, about 36 hours after we started the trip. We were all running on about 11 hours of sleep, and were now in a time zone that was 7 hours earlier than where we started. But we were HOME!!!

Gianna had perma-grin as we told her this was her forever home "mindig otthom". After our little first class vacation, we were all in pretty good spirits considering all the stress we had been through. And gramma and grampa and a couple of friends met us at the airport to welcome us home. Careful not to allow too many hugs or kisses yet, everyone was excited to see our new little girl - especially little Elsie who had a sign and came running up to us ahead of everyone else to say "hi Gianna". I suspect these two will be good friends in the near future!

I never found my red ruby slippers that I wanted, so I could have just tapped the heals together and said "There's no place like home" to get us here fast. But we made it safely and happily, and that's all I can ask for. Our travel adventure is over! Time to begin the new adventure of figuring out how to be a family of four.