8/1/07 - Heathrow - Washington (Dulles) - NYC Day 12
Up at 3.30am (after 3 hours sleep!), dragging my suitcases down to the Lobby. Everyone had the same bleary-eyed look on their faces. But still there was gossip to be had! Apparently Neil had invited a few people round to his apartment for farewell drinks on the Sunday evening, including a [lecherous] friend of Fr G’s, Peter (who had been trying to crack on to Huw at every opportunity!), who proceeded to smoke out of a small window all night, which was also inadvertently letting out all the heat, and letting in the wind which was blowing rather strongly, and blowing the smoke back in with it!
Here’s a lovely sign I spied when we were all being loaded onto the coach for the trip to Heathrow.
Once at the airport, we checked ourselves in, wondered through Duty Free (where yet again, I restrained myself from extravagant purchases), and made our way to the gate lounge.
Based on my experience on this flight alone, I am never flying United again - the in-flight service was absolutely disgraceful. The look of scorn on the trolley-girls' faces if you asked for a cup of water was so painful...gawd! Also, no free booze on the flight. The food was pretty bad too...
We landed in Washington right on time, and emerged from the aircraft to find that the airport is currently undergoing renovations. They also have a funny practice of these lunar-explorer-type vehicles that bus you between terminals A, B, C and D.
Poor Huw had bed-hair all day...
We had a good few hours to wait for our connecting flight to New York, so mostly we sat around and ate (we were becoming American already!) and rested.
Whilst at the gatelounge, an announcement went out that United thought the flight was too heavy, and needed 3 people to transfer to a different flight (there was compensation involved though). As we boarded the aeroplane, we found out why - it was a 46 seater jet - boy, did I feel worried!! Luckily we all got to fly together.
We took off (had my fingers crossed as we sped down the runway) and landed about 40 minutes later. By this time it was nearly 6pm, and we'd all been awake for an inordinately long time, taking into account that England was 5 hours ahead of us. We all checked in to the Hotel Pennsylvania, and a group of us (Mark, Danny, Huw, Sam, Craig and I) went off in search of dinner. We found a charming little Italian joint, and ate like kings :) We then went in search of coffee, braving a bitterly cold wind (I went out without a scarf, gloves or beanie), found some dodgy coffee house run by Russians, with only filtered coffee, but they did have a most delicious bread pudding (what we call Bread & Butter Pudding). Almost turned into an icicle on the way back to the hotel, and was glad of the overheated building when we arrived back!
I was very disappointed at my room - both taps leaked in the sink, the shower/bath leaked, my window wouldn't open nor close completely, the room smelt dirty, no internet access in the building, the ceiling paint was peeling off, and there was a mysterious dark stain outside the entrance to the room. Apart from that, it was fine!!
Time for bed! And Sean arrives on Wednesday - yay!
Here’s a lovely sign I spied when we were all being loaded onto the coach for the trip to Heathrow.
Once at the airport, we checked ourselves in, wondered through Duty Free (where yet again, I restrained myself from extravagant purchases), and made our way to the gate lounge.
Based on my experience on this flight alone, I am never flying United again - the in-flight service was absolutely disgraceful. The look of scorn on the trolley-girls' faces if you asked for a cup of water was so painful...gawd! Also, no free booze on the flight. The food was pretty bad too...
We landed in Washington right on time, and emerged from the aircraft to find that the airport is currently undergoing renovations. They also have a funny practice of these lunar-explorer-type vehicles that bus you between terminals A, B, C and D.
Poor Huw had bed-hair all day...
We had a good few hours to wait for our connecting flight to New York, so mostly we sat around and ate (we were becoming American already!) and rested.
Whilst at the gatelounge, an announcement went out that United thought the flight was too heavy, and needed 3 people to transfer to a different flight (there was compensation involved though). As we boarded the aeroplane, we found out why - it was a 46 seater jet - boy, did I feel worried!! Luckily we all got to fly together.
We took off (had my fingers crossed as we sped down the runway) and landed about 40 minutes later. By this time it was nearly 6pm, and we'd all been awake for an inordinately long time, taking into account that England was 5 hours ahead of us. We all checked in to the Hotel Pennsylvania, and a group of us (Mark, Danny, Huw, Sam, Craig and I) went off in search of dinner. We found a charming little Italian joint, and ate like kings :) We then went in search of coffee, braving a bitterly cold wind (I went out without a scarf, gloves or beanie), found some dodgy coffee house run by Russians, with only filtered coffee, but they did have a most delicious bread pudding (what we call Bread & Butter Pudding). Almost turned into an icicle on the way back to the hotel, and was glad of the overheated building when we arrived back!
I was very disappointed at my room - both taps leaked in the sink, the shower/bath leaked, my window wouldn't open nor close completely, the room smelt dirty, no internet access in the building, the ceiling paint was peeling off, and there was a mysterious dark stain outside the entrance to the room. Apart from that, it was fine!!
Time for bed! And Sean arrives on Wednesday - yay!
posted by Daniel at 3:32 am
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