Good to Be Home!

September 27 was a looong day of travel...but we were looking forward to being back home.

It was easily midnight before when we got settled at our hotel near London Heathrow...and our wake-up call was for 6am. The "Hotel Hoppa" bus left hourly for our airport terminal, and we didn't want to take a chance on a final conquista (or whatever the British version of conquista might be) to make us late.

At the airport we had access to American Airline's large business class lounge, where we had a nice breakfast from the fruit, yogurts, breakfast sandwiches and beverages provided. There was even a coffee machine that made a good cappucino. There were outlets for some recharging of our phones and such, which had been tough to do since the thieves got away with all of our charges.  

A little nap before our flight

Best part were nice comfy chairs, where Ally got to curl up and nap. She is still battling the cold that's plagued us all, and the pressure of the night before's landing on her sinuses was not a lot of fun.

The flight home was on a 767, not a 777 like our flight over. While flying in the business class section was still a treat, it wasn't quite a spiffy as on the 777. Since there wasn't three-across seating, Jorge was not able to sit near Ally and I.

Even though the plane was older, the crew took great care of us and the food was excellent. Since we were flying in the daytime, there wasn't a lot of sleep to be had, but we did get to watch several movies/TV shows. Once we saw Chariots of Fire was an option, Ally and I both knew we had to watch it to compare to the stage version we'd seen in London. We also watched the pilot of the new series Nashville (great!) and the first two episodes of the comedy Veep (hysterical!).

Another nice perk of the business class was using the "fast track" line through customs. When we left the plane, a representative was there with our boarding passes for the Chicago-to-Seattle flight and the special bright orange folder that got us through the fast track line.

Our only travel hiccup of the trip was on the final leg in Chicago. We were an hour late taking off because of some minor problems that needed to be fixed. I was finally able to grab about an hour of sleep on this flight.  Poor Ally was battling the sinus pressure again on our descent, and was surrounded by tissues at landing (blowing her nose seemed to bring the only relief).

We landed in Seattle about 6:15pm, got our luggage, and Tia was waiting at the curb to take us home. We tried to stay up as late as we could to get back on local time, but I don't think any of us made it past 9pm.  So good to be home!