HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Bag underweight again – 22.4kg
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Having to get up so early
WORD OF THE DAY: - always written phonetically – Grazia – thanks in Italian
Early pick up this morning. I was given the range of between 4.45am-5.15am for the collection time. There’s always the concern that the transfer won’t turn up that early, but I was down stairs right on 4.45am and he was there waiting for me, which was awesome. We had one other collection and then my driver drove like a bat out of hell and I am sure got us to Heathrow in record time at 5.55am
I am departing from terminal 5, where all British Airways flights now depart from, and this terminal is amazing. It is all still new, they had a guy walking around with a weekly ‘newsletter’ pointing out things you can do in the terminal and what the weekly duty free offers are. The downside is that Wi-Fi is not free here. The cheapest was 9.95GBP for 24 hours and a lot of the restaurants also don’t offer the service. Weird, because it is so large, but maybe that is why.
You self-check-in for BA flights, so I did this and went to the bag drop to find out I was 30 minutes too early. So I sat and booted up the computer and caught up on my latest blog entry. By the time I finished this, I could drop the bag, which without even knowing I did a Leyton ‘yeah’ fist action as it came in at 22.4kg. The check-in dude was quite amused.
Security check can be a nightmare, you get the idiots who have to take off half their clothes, get out their lap tops, forget to take off their belt, so they have to go back through, then they forgot about their liquids bag, so it has to get x-rayed again and the process can be quite lengthy. I think this is the most frustrating thing with airports, getting all the idiots through the security check points. Terminal 5 has tried to limit the holdup time, they are well organized and had like 15 stations open, so the wait time was minimal and they have these fancy machines and plenty of the boxes you put your stuff into to keep the process moving. I do have a pair of scissors in my pencil case, that are below regulation, I got them through St Petersburg and also Helsinki after they were checked accordingly, but London didn’t even pull me up on them. I think I may start my scissor challenge and see if they can make their way through every airport check I get done. Let’s see how far they get!
Our flight left from a gate that required a bus transfer to the plane. I was on the first bus, nearly the last one they squeezed on, so I was the first off and the very first person to walk on the aircraft – I felt very special. The plane was one of those executive ones, the whole plane was leather which special cup holders on your arm rests and once again happy to report nice and roomy. We were all packed on and tucked in nicely when the captain came onto the pa and reported that there was a security check missing off their report that they had, so this needed to be done, and we had to wait the 60 minutes for this to be done. So tick tick tick – 60 minutes arrived and it was completed, but when they did this last check, they noticed one of the tyres didn’t look right, so another 30 minutes while they changed the planes tyre and then we were good to go. All the time we were sitting on the plane! Being Heathrow, we then had to wait another 20 minutes to find a slot that traffic control could fit us into to be able to get out. You can literally see the queue of planes waiting for takeoff is a site to see. So we left nearly 2 hours late, but safety is pretty important, so people shouldn’t really complain right?
2 hours and 40 minutes finds us landing in Rome. Once again being Non-EU passport holders gets you straight through customs, no line up and the Italian customs seem pretty laid back guys. The thing of getting through quick is your bags aren’t quite as fast, so it is hurry up and wait scenario. I just pull my book out and am happy to read till my bag finally surfaces. I’m in no rush. I’m still trying to work out how I’m going to get to the hotel. I did buy a train ticket before I left home, but as my bag is quite hefty and I have an additional bag, I could think of nothing worse trying to shuffle my way around, so I did the easy way out and paid $25 EUR for shared transfer to take me directly to my hotel. Best money I have spent let me tell you. FYI a taxi costs 65EUR, the train 17EUR and if you have 6 people or more from 10EUR.
My hotel is amazing. The St Regis Grand is just that – grand. This is one of the little splurges I have on the trip, to get ready for my 56 days of Contiki I have coming! Chelsey arrives tomorrow afternoon, so it will be good to have some company again. We then head off for our cruise of the Mediterranean for a week. Ahhhh some sea and sun, the only blot is we have pre-purchased a drinks package, so there may be some Ughhhhhhhhh sea and sun days – but we will wait and see.
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