franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
We landed at Heathrow and were amongst the first off the plane. We had to go through security again. For some reason I got pulled off to the side for extra special screening. Fun times.
Our business class tickets gave us access to the British Airways lounge. There were several in the terminal and since our gate assignment had not been posted yet, we made a guess as to which lounge to go to, and went to the North lounge. We choose poorly.
When we handed our tickets to the check in agent, she informed us that our gate would be B39 and that the South lounge would be closer to our gate. Also we had to take a train to get there. So we turned around went back down the three escalators that we had come up to get there. And down one more to get to the train.
We got to the location of our gate and I wanted some water. Jill said we had time to go up to the lounge and get free water. We also had time to see if there was some quick food available. I filled my water and then went to take a look at the food. They were in the process of changing over from breakfast to lunch. Like so many places nowadays they had examples of what they were serving displayed on plates. I saw a bun full of bacon and asked what that was. It was simply bacon on a brioche roll. Actually it was just a hamburger bun, but brioche sounds fancier. Perfect! I'll take it. I practically ran back to the table and told Jill to go get one. Neither of us really ate the bun, we just enjoyed the yummy porky goodness.
Then we headed to our gate, and boarded shortly thereafter. People probably thought we were insane. The entire way down the jetway we sounded like the dogs on the Beggin' strips commercial. "Bacon, bacon, bacon!" We kept chanting. Clearly we'd had too many early mornings and lack of sleep.
There was a huge hold up for getting on the plane. The people in wheelchairs were still sitting there waiting to board. We heard one of the crew members say something about a guy who was in a wheelchair and they weren't sure if they could lift him to get him into the seat. Evidently he was in the aisle seat that would eventually be across from Jill's seat.
We took our seats and again we had the comfy lay flat pods. This time it was even more ideal because we had a pass through between us so that we could chit chat throughout the flight.
We were served champagne before takeoff. I didn't take a picture of the menu. Oops. Did I mention that I was tired?
I guess Jill watched “The Holiday”
I’m not sure what this drink was. It must be Jill’s because it’s not wine!
They came by to take our orders. The choices for appetizers were some sort of barley salad with beets, a smoked salmon, or sweet potato soup.
The choices for mains were lamb of some kind, chicken, or a pasta with mushrooms. I ordered the chicken, but they came back to tell me they were out so I had to pick something else. I'd really had enough lamb on this trip so I went with the pasta. I guess Jill got the last chicken dish.
I think I’m glad I went with the pasta.
For my dessert I had the apricot souffle. It was more like a sort of custard, but it was good. Jill’s looks different than mine.
He took my soup away before I was actually finished, but when he went to take my pasta, I was like, no I'm still eating it. Same for the dessert.
On the video screen I decided to watch Love Actually since it's Jenny's favorite movie and I've never seen it. Bad choice. It's all about happy people falling in love, with the exception of Professor Snape who is cheating on his wife. It just highlighted to me that I just lost my love of my life, and don't see myself in that situation of discovering a new romance anytime soon, if ever even.
I'd finished eating, and just as the movie was ending I paused it during the credits. Before the meal I had purchased the WiFi package (cheap of them not giving us free WiFi in business class), and had been working on the TR. I took off my headphones to get the computer back out and start working on it. Almost instantly I heard the unmistakable sounds of someone vomiting. I grabbed the headphones, put them back on, restarted the credits and turned up the volume.
Jill didn't notice cause she was listening to a movie of her own. I think by this time she may have finished her first movie and started watching Love Actually herself. Pretty soon it was impossible not to notice what was going on in the seat behind her. There were multiple crew members in the aisle tending to him.
When Jill finally noticed, I told her that the guy behind her had puked. She was glad she didn't know about it because she said she was a sympathetic puker. I've been known to have that problem as well, so I'm glad I didn't this time.
I started to try and work on my computer, but when I tried to log back onto the WiFi, it didn't recognize that I'd spent $25+ on the full flight package and it wanted me to purchase it again. I complained to the stewardess about this and she said she would send her manager over. While I was waiting for the manager, the puker started up again and I realized I better pick another movie. This time I went with Hairspray, the Musical.
Eventually the manager came over. I'm sure he was thrilled to deal with me and my whiny Karen WiFi problem when they had someone experiencing a potential medical emergency. But as soon as he stopped down to check out the problem, the WiFi registered and confirmed I'd bought the package. He left figuring everything was solved. I never did get back on the WiFi. I finally gave up and put my computer away figuring I would hit them up for a refund once I got home. I didn’t.
I finished Hairspray, and that too was a poor choice. The last song is You can't Stop the Beat and that was the closer on our upcoming concert (in November). Fran was the one who nominated that song. You see, this concert was the band's 45th Anniversary concert. Band members nominated their favorite pieces and then we all voted on them to choose what we would play. Fran lived to see the songs on the program, but she never got to rehearse any of the songs. She passed before the rehearsals started. So when "You can't Stop the Beat" came on I started bawling all over again.
I don't know how many more times the guy ended up puking, but it seems like he was going throughout the flight. Poor guy, I'm sure he wasn't having a good time either, but ugh.
I think it was about this time that I pulled up the map. Jill had said we were about to fly over @pkondz's house so I took this picture for him.
I realized that I needed to just keep watching movies with the volume cranked so I couldn't hear what was going on. I decided to try and watch Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. That came out right around Fran's last weeks and she was in no shape to see movies. She even passed on the movies on the cruise six weeks before her death.
I got about a half an hour into it when I realized that I needed to watch it another time. I'd been up for 18 hours or so now, plus I'd been having the stewards refill my wine glass since take off. I was sipping it slowly, but still I was starting to doze off. I did end up watching the entire trio of movies over New Year’s so that was fun.
I put on Lilo & Stitch the Movie cause I know how that one goes. I also extended my seat to lay flat and snuggled up. I believe that I drowsed in and out for about an hour. While I was crashed out, Jill was served Afternoon tea.
The movie was almost over when the captain interrupted to say that we had about 40 minutes until landing.
I brought my seat back up, finished the movie, and watched the map the rest of the way.
They let all the Business class passengers off the plane first and Jill and I sailed through customs with our Global Entry. We got our bags pretty quickly and headed out to meet our driver. Jill was smart and booked someone to pick us up (she had also booked someone to take her to the airport). Neither of us would have been fit to drive after the day we had. Heck I almost tripped getting off the moving walkway!
We got to her house and immediately started a Stouffers Lasagne in the oven. She ended up just putting hers into a Tupperware and saving it for later, because she wasn't hungry.
I ate every last bite of mine, and considered eating more, but instead ate a couple of the Milka biscuits I had picked up on the way back from Alexandria.
Both of us went to bed. It was 7:15 Denver time. Twenty-four hours after we had woken up that morning.
Neither of us slept well. When we reconvened in the morning, we confirmed that we kept waking up every two hours. We both (separately) tried the “playing games on our phones” to tire ourselves out in the middle of the night. Around 1:30AM, I was playing on my phone. When I decided to put it back down it was 1:15AM. I had no idea what was going on, but I was able to go back to sleep for about three hours starting around 2AM. Jill was up for the rest of the night.
I woke at 5AM and figured that was enough sleep for me. I finally figured out what happened with the time. I just happened to be awake playing games when the Mountain Time Zone fell back for Fall, so I got an extra hour of gaming.
I went downstairs, made coffee, found some heavy cream that wasn't soured (the milk was), and started to work on the computer. About that time Jill came down and started to watch the Chief's game that was being played in Germany.
For over a week we had been planning breakfast at Jill's favorite spot. They opened at 6AM and we headed over there around 7AM. We've been to this place before so we have a standard drink order. She gets the Blood Orange Mimosa, I get the straight up Bloody Mary. (They have several flavors from Kimchi spice, Thai flavor and just plain spicy.) You may see something similar if you join in on my next TR!
I'd been wanting an egg over easy, but the only way that I eat it is with a bite of egg on top of a piece of toast, and a slice of bacon in that bite. We had been planning this breakfast since we were in Cairo.
She got the Sandwich I Am, with sausage and egg on a pretzel roll.
She also got a pumpkin pancake. She would have shared it with me, but I couldn't even finish my own breakfast.
We still had a couple hours to kill before I had to be at the airport so I paid some bills on the computer. It was November 4th and the rent for all the tenants who pay via Zelle had hit my bank account so I played around with money. I worked on the TR, and just relaxed until it was time to go.
She dropped me off at the airport. I checked my bags, made my way through security, to the gate and eventually onto the plane.
As I was getting off the plane in London, I had received a text message from Jim asking about my itinerary. I'm always amazed that he never knows when he's supposed to pick me up. Turns out that he had a concert while my plane was landing. I should have realized that because I was invited to play with that same band, but since I wasn’t going to be able to make the concert, I declined to play with that band.
He was able to get his partner, Alberto, to pick me up instead and I was back home in less than half an hour after my plane landed. The kitties were very happy to see me!
The End!
Tomorrow I leave for my first Walt Disney World trip since Fran passed. But don't worry there will still be and TR and plenty of antics. I'm bringing Jill, Jenny and her Boy Toy (of 30 years) along!
Our business class tickets gave us access to the British Airways lounge. There were several in the terminal and since our gate assignment had not been posted yet, we made a guess as to which lounge to go to, and went to the North lounge. We choose poorly.
When we handed our tickets to the check in agent, she informed us that our gate would be B39 and that the South lounge would be closer to our gate. Also we had to take a train to get there. So we turned around went back down the three escalators that we had come up to get there. And down one more to get to the train.
We got to the location of our gate and I wanted some water. Jill said we had time to go up to the lounge and get free water. We also had time to see if there was some quick food available. I filled my water and then went to take a look at the food. They were in the process of changing over from breakfast to lunch. Like so many places nowadays they had examples of what they were serving displayed on plates. I saw a bun full of bacon and asked what that was. It was simply bacon on a brioche roll. Actually it was just a hamburger bun, but brioche sounds fancier. Perfect! I'll take it. I practically ran back to the table and told Jill to go get one. Neither of us really ate the bun, we just enjoyed the yummy porky goodness.
Then we headed to our gate, and boarded shortly thereafter. People probably thought we were insane. The entire way down the jetway we sounded like the dogs on the Beggin' strips commercial. "Bacon, bacon, bacon!" We kept chanting. Clearly we'd had too many early mornings and lack of sleep.
There was a huge hold up for getting on the plane. The people in wheelchairs were still sitting there waiting to board. We heard one of the crew members say something about a guy who was in a wheelchair and they weren't sure if they could lift him to get him into the seat. Evidently he was in the aisle seat that would eventually be across from Jill's seat.
We took our seats and again we had the comfy lay flat pods. This time it was even more ideal because we had a pass through between us so that we could chit chat throughout the flight.
We were served champagne before takeoff. I didn't take a picture of the menu. Oops. Did I mention that I was tired?
I guess Jill watched “The Holiday”
I’m not sure what this drink was. It must be Jill’s because it’s not wine!
They came by to take our orders. The choices for appetizers were some sort of barley salad with beets, a smoked salmon, or sweet potato soup.
The choices for mains were lamb of some kind, chicken, or a pasta with mushrooms. I ordered the chicken, but they came back to tell me they were out so I had to pick something else. I'd really had enough lamb on this trip so I went with the pasta. I guess Jill got the last chicken dish.
I think I’m glad I went with the pasta.
For my dessert I had the apricot souffle. It was more like a sort of custard, but it was good. Jill’s looks different than mine.
He took my soup away before I was actually finished, but when he went to take my pasta, I was like, no I'm still eating it. Same for the dessert.
On the video screen I decided to watch Love Actually since it's Jenny's favorite movie and I've never seen it. Bad choice. It's all about happy people falling in love, with the exception of Professor Snape who is cheating on his wife. It just highlighted to me that I just lost my love of my life, and don't see myself in that situation of discovering a new romance anytime soon, if ever even.
I'd finished eating, and just as the movie was ending I paused it during the credits. Before the meal I had purchased the WiFi package (cheap of them not giving us free WiFi in business class), and had been working on the TR. I took off my headphones to get the computer back out and start working on it. Almost instantly I heard the unmistakable sounds of someone vomiting. I grabbed the headphones, put them back on, restarted the credits and turned up the volume.
Jill didn't notice cause she was listening to a movie of her own. I think by this time she may have finished her first movie and started watching Love Actually herself. Pretty soon it was impossible not to notice what was going on in the seat behind her. There were multiple crew members in the aisle tending to him.
When Jill finally noticed, I told her that the guy behind her had puked. She was glad she didn't know about it because she said she was a sympathetic puker. I've been known to have that problem as well, so I'm glad I didn't this time.
I started to try and work on my computer, but when I tried to log back onto the WiFi, it didn't recognize that I'd spent $25+ on the full flight package and it wanted me to purchase it again. I complained to the stewardess about this and she said she would send her manager over. While I was waiting for the manager, the puker started up again and I realized I better pick another movie. This time I went with Hairspray, the Musical.
Eventually the manager came over. I'm sure he was thrilled to deal with me and my whiny Karen WiFi problem when they had someone experiencing a potential medical emergency. But as soon as he stopped down to check out the problem, the WiFi registered and confirmed I'd bought the package. He left figuring everything was solved. I never did get back on the WiFi. I finally gave up and put my computer away figuring I would hit them up for a refund once I got home. I didn’t.
I finished Hairspray, and that too was a poor choice. The last song is You can't Stop the Beat and that was the closer on our upcoming concert (in November). Fran was the one who nominated that song. You see, this concert was the band's 45th Anniversary concert. Band members nominated their favorite pieces and then we all voted on them to choose what we would play. Fran lived to see the songs on the program, but she never got to rehearse any of the songs. She passed before the rehearsals started. So when "You can't Stop the Beat" came on I started bawling all over again.
I don't know how many more times the guy ended up puking, but it seems like he was going throughout the flight. Poor guy, I'm sure he wasn't having a good time either, but ugh.
I think it was about this time that I pulled up the map. Jill had said we were about to fly over @pkondz's house so I took this picture for him.
I realized that I needed to just keep watching movies with the volume cranked so I couldn't hear what was going on. I decided to try and watch Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. That came out right around Fran's last weeks and she was in no shape to see movies. She even passed on the movies on the cruise six weeks before her death.
I got about a half an hour into it when I realized that I needed to watch it another time. I'd been up for 18 hours or so now, plus I'd been having the stewards refill my wine glass since take off. I was sipping it slowly, but still I was starting to doze off. I did end up watching the entire trio of movies over New Year’s so that was fun.
I put on Lilo & Stitch the Movie cause I know how that one goes. I also extended my seat to lay flat and snuggled up. I believe that I drowsed in and out for about an hour. While I was crashed out, Jill was served Afternoon tea.
The movie was almost over when the captain interrupted to say that we had about 40 minutes until landing.
I brought my seat back up, finished the movie, and watched the map the rest of the way.
They let all the Business class passengers off the plane first and Jill and I sailed through customs with our Global Entry. We got our bags pretty quickly and headed out to meet our driver. Jill was smart and booked someone to pick us up (she had also booked someone to take her to the airport). Neither of us would have been fit to drive after the day we had. Heck I almost tripped getting off the moving walkway!
We got to her house and immediately started a Stouffers Lasagne in the oven. She ended up just putting hers into a Tupperware and saving it for later, because she wasn't hungry.
I ate every last bite of mine, and considered eating more, but instead ate a couple of the Milka biscuits I had picked up on the way back from Alexandria.
Both of us went to bed. It was 7:15 Denver time. Twenty-four hours after we had woken up that morning.
Neither of us slept well. When we reconvened in the morning, we confirmed that we kept waking up every two hours. We both (separately) tried the “playing games on our phones” to tire ourselves out in the middle of the night. Around 1:30AM, I was playing on my phone. When I decided to put it back down it was 1:15AM. I had no idea what was going on, but I was able to go back to sleep for about three hours starting around 2AM. Jill was up for the rest of the night.
I woke at 5AM and figured that was enough sleep for me. I finally figured out what happened with the time. I just happened to be awake playing games when the Mountain Time Zone fell back for Fall, so I got an extra hour of gaming.
I went downstairs, made coffee, found some heavy cream that wasn't soured (the milk was), and started to work on the computer. About that time Jill came down and started to watch the Chief's game that was being played in Germany.
For over a week we had been planning breakfast at Jill's favorite spot. They opened at 6AM and we headed over there around 7AM. We've been to this place before so we have a standard drink order. She gets the Blood Orange Mimosa, I get the straight up Bloody Mary. (They have several flavors from Kimchi spice, Thai flavor and just plain spicy.) You may see something similar if you join in on my next TR!
I'd been wanting an egg over easy, but the only way that I eat it is with a bite of egg on top of a piece of toast, and a slice of bacon in that bite. We had been planning this breakfast since we were in Cairo.
She got the Sandwich I Am, with sausage and egg on a pretzel roll.
She also got a pumpkin pancake. She would have shared it with me, but I couldn't even finish my own breakfast.
We still had a couple hours to kill before I had to be at the airport so I paid some bills on the computer. It was November 4th and the rent for all the tenants who pay via Zelle had hit my bank account so I played around with money. I worked on the TR, and just relaxed until it was time to go.
She dropped me off at the airport. I checked my bags, made my way through security, to the gate and eventually onto the plane.
As I was getting off the plane in London, I had received a text message from Jim asking about my itinerary. I'm always amazed that he never knows when he's supposed to pick me up. Turns out that he had a concert while my plane was landing. I should have realized that because I was invited to play with that same band, but since I wasn’t going to be able to make the concert, I declined to play with that band.
He was able to get his partner, Alberto, to pick me up instead and I was back home in less than half an hour after my plane landed. The kitties were very happy to see me!
The End!
Tomorrow I leave for my first Walt Disney World trip since Fran passed. But don't worry there will still be and TR and plenty of antics. I'm bringing Jill, Jenny and her Boy Toy (of 30 years) along!
