On the road again

March 13th, after wedding brunch and departure

Up in the morning to shower and wash all the hairspray out of my hair.  I had to grab my bigger suitcase so I could finish packing my things.  In London I will now have two bigger suitcases and my tiny baby suitcase.  After making sure I got everything packed and everyone else was packed up we headed to MiMi's Cafe for brunch.  Amy's parents put this together with a set menu and people from out of town were invited.  About 40+ people all squeezed into the back room.  More mingling and talking with everyone.  Finally the newlyweds arrived and it was time for breakfast, or lunch.  It was about noon.  I ordered an apple juice, which came in a tall glass making it look like beer with no foam, and Belgium waffle with eggs and bacon, again ate most of it.  Time was ticking away pretty fast this morning.  The whole time I was sitting there I was fighting back tears because I didn't want to leave.  How emotional am I?  Pretty, at times, but it's all right.  After finishing and talking some more with people it was finally time to say goodbye.  The Roth family is late to a lot of things and we're even late saying goodbye, as in we were wanting to leave around 1 but we left after that.  We finally left MiMi's Cafe and headed to the airport, we parked and headed in so Rachel and I could both check into our flights.  Long story short, it was quite foggy outside, so my flight to Chicago was delayed until 4, then to about 7.  Rachel accidentally booked her flight a month earlier.  For a couple hours we were on the phone with different people trying to get Rachel's flight figured out.  We got her a new flight and she was leaving out of Chicago Sunday evening.  Since my flight was delayed that meant I missed my flight to D.C. and then to London.  I was put on standby in Chicago for a flight to London that was leaving around 9 that night.  Gwen, my dad's cousin was also on the flight to Chicago and she was already at the gate so she was keeping us updated on when it was going to start boarding and take off.  Around 4 or thereafter she gave us a call to say the flight was leaving now around 5:30.  That meant I had to "hurry" my goodbye's.  Another very hard thing to do.  I mustered up my energy to say goodbye to my family and wish Rachel a safe flight and to also say goodbye to Joe, who was a trooper and hung out with us all during this time, evening buying us all a pop/water.  Off I was through security and to my gate.  I met up with Gwen who was standing with all the other people waiting for our flight.  We finally boarded and even took off slightly after 5.  I listened to music on the ride over to Chicago.  Once in Chicago I said goodbye to Gwen and headed to a United information desk.

Since a lot of flights were delayed and canceled going into and out of Chicago, United had a very long line.  Of course, I got stuck with the "young, hip" mother taking two girls (possibly bother her daughters) to Orlando for spring break.  Since she missed her flight as well she was not happy.  She kept complaining that they better get them a room and blah, blah, blah.  I kind of wanted to turn to her and tell her to please stop complaining, she was going to Orlando, I had to get a to London.  Some people, goodness.  I was eventually the next in line and when it was my turn I handed my tickets over to the lady at the counter and told her I needed to be put on standby for the 9:00 pm flight to London.  She told me that was not possibly since I was supposed to be going to D.C. and then to London.  This day was already filled with a ton of things going on, I didn't need her telling me I couldn't make it to London.  I then told her that the lady in Des Moines said I was put onto standby already, she looked further and said that was true and that I am booked to leave on this flight.  Fantastic.  She tells me the gate and off I go.  I did spot an Auntie Anne's Pretzel place, and I can not resist those, so happy supper to me.  I get to my gate, find out my phone has no battery life left so I ask a kind stranger if I can borrow his phone.  He lets me and I call my mom to tell her I am safe and should be in London in the morning.  I don't get an assigned seat until most of the people have boarded, very, very nerve racking.  Now, I just have to say that I don't like how United Airlines does there international movie/tv show thing.  They start movies on different channels all at the same time.  Of course, you have no idea what you are watching until you can land on the opening title, or you just watch until you realize what it is.  Oh, the screens are also kind of small.  Delta, now that was nice.  They had a touch screen and you could pick a movie, show, game, music, whatever you wanted to do.  You could start, pause, or stop it whenever; you knew what you were watching too.  United didn't have very many good movies playing either.  I ended up watching parts of Blues Brothers, when I wasn't sleeping.  The food wasn't the greatest either, at least breakfast.  Supper was noodles and marinara sauce, not too bad.  The roll wasn't very big though and no crackers and cheese.  Sad day for me.  Remind me not to fly United internationally again.  (no offense to them).  For most of the flight I slept, ate when food was coming around and sometimes watched a movie.  Otherwise my Saturday then turns into my Sunday...