Traveling Home from the British Isles

The morning of the day we were finally planning to depart, Joe was the only one who couldn’t check in online for the flight. He contacted Play customer service via Facebook and was told to go to the checkin desk at the airport before the flight. We got to the terminal early and said goodbye to John, who was staying in England an extra day to give a seminar on some of the work that his lab does to collaborators of theirs in Loughborough.

Joe, happy to be going home

Joe went to the desk and was told that, for some reason, he had been put on standby for the flight home and was fourth on the list. Not very optimistic that he would make it, we headed to the gate as he started researching other flights home. We came up with several potential options, but they would be pretty difficult logistically and fairly expensive. However, just as we were getting ready to board, they called him up to the desk and gave him a seat - 38F - the very last seat in the back of the plane. Much to Theo’s disappointment, Joe got a window seat, as opposed to the middle seat he had. Theo said, “First Joe gets interviewed by the Polish media, hangs out with the royal horses, and then gets the window seat on the way home. Next week he’ll be dating a model. Joe just thinks he’s the cat’s meow.”

All aboard!

While I was very happy that Joe made it onto the airplane (I was afraid he was going to mess up my stats there for a minute), I have to admit, there would have been just a small amount of sweet justice if he had been the only one to miss this flight, after waving at us from the Spirit Airlines flight that took off and left us all behind in Florida, during our trip to Costa Rica

A well traveled apple

We arrived at the Iceland airport, and I finally enjoyed my apple which had traveled to all five countries with us. Several hours later, we finally arrived in Baltimore at BWI. Mobile Passport allowed (most of) us to make it through the customs line quickly, but Abbie was disappointed she didn’t get a, “Welcome home!” from the agent.

The Arctic Ocean

We encountered a little bit of car trouble on the way home, but Sam came to the rescue and we were all able to limp home while listening to the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. We made it back early Monday morning, just in time for us all to be at work the next morning. No harm, no foul on the delay!