After many a false start, I’m finally whipping out the passport and meeting up with a friend for a much-needed change of scenery. Dang you, COVID! Originally this trip should have happened in March of 2020, but…we all know what happened. Then there was the canceled trip to Iceland to see the northern lights. But it’s 2022 and it’s the year for travel and adventure.
Despite being insanely early to my gate at O’Hare, of course, there was a delay leaving Chicago. Bad news for many of us travelers who had tight connections to make in Newark. As we all were having our freakouts in the waiting area, I met a young couple from Alabama who were absolutely beside themselves because the delay would mean that they would miss boarding their connection to Spain by 10 minutes. We connected throughout fandoms (Star Wars t-shirts and Harry Potter luggage tags) and talked each other off the ledge as we saw the minutes continue to pass. An hour plus late, we finally boarded and were on our way.
I swear it was the longest taxi up to a gate once we made it to EWR. Despite the flight attendants trying to get the handful of us who were trying to catch our connections off-boarded first, it was so tight that I managed to run a 10-minute mile from one end of the C terminal to the other. I made it and was in my seat about 5 minutes before the door closed and was sure that I’d be flying without my suitcase, but I was still feeling beyond lucky.
It’s been ages since I’ve had such a long flight. It’s really a thing to see cities illuminated at 35,000 feet as you pass over them. Then the pitch black as we cross the pond. I probably only got an hour’s worth of solid sleep before waking to see sunrise ahead of me.
I didn’t even mind the awful breakfast they served us. (Hey United, how hard would it be to give us little breakfast sandwiches? C’mon.) We’d be landing soon, and a week of adventures in Scotland lay ahead.
