Not In Kansas Anymore

Feb. 9, 2013
As people scurried to get their bags from the overhead compartments and hurried off the planes, I stood up and snapped a few photos.

“Now you look like a tourist,” Britney said.

I too grabbed my bag and crammed my pillow, book, and camera back into it. When I looked back up, Britney was gone. The mother behind me was still trying to wrestle with her disgruntled daughter. I popped up the handle on my bag and pulling it behind me, disembarked from the plane.

Something I remember from camping was that you never realized how good your house smelled until you came home and realized how bad you smell. The same can be said about getting off a 777. I’m sure it was just the newness of it all, but everything about Heathrow airport was awesome. Not only did it smell better than the airplane had, it smelled exactly how I imagined it to. And the smells weren’t the only incredible feature. From the rows and rows of both British Airways and Virgin Air planes, to signs reading “lift” over the elevators, I was totally captivated by the fact that I was in the international terminal of Heathrow Airport.

Following the purple signs as I’d been instructed, I got to the train to “All Terminals.” As we got off the train and boarded to the lift to the main level, for the first time, I got to experience a truth that I have found to be true since I left the states: personal space doesn’t exist outside of America. People not only packed into the elevator, they packed onto the escalator, they crammed through queues and lines freely brushing up, stepping over, and pushing around to get where they are going.

My connecting flight was out of Terminal 3. I had a 5 hour layover and the airline insisted that you must have a mimimum of 6 hours between flights to leave the airport. Once I got off the train, I easily found the gate for the Terminal 3 bus. When it pulled up, we again piled in. I felt like a clunky tourist dragging my bag behind me. All around me, people of all ethnic backgrounds were chattering away in British accents. That is with the exception of a group of consultants in the back of the bus. They were loudly discussing various trips they’d been on, each with a boisterous Texas accent.

I reveled at the fact the bus was driving on the “wrong” side of the road. After a 10 minute ride, we arrived at Terminal 3 and with an iconic “Mind the gap” from the driver, we again disembarked. Once inside the terminal. I had to go through security. I really expected to go through customs at some point, but this security looked just like the TSA screening I’d passed through just 8 hours ago.

I stopped to get out my ziplock bag of liquids. There was a woman in a purple uniform explaining something to a young couple. She had a bright smile on her face as her accented voice explained what they needed to do. They thanked her, revealing they also had British accents, and went into the queue.

Zipping my bag, I stood up and walked over to her. She smiled warmly at me and said, “Good morning sir.” I smiled back at her.

“Hello,” I said. Her smile disappeared. I waited briefly to see if she would continue the conversation, but she didn’t. “This is my first time in London,” I explained. “I just flew in from an international flight and wanted to make sure I am in the right place.” I showed her my boarding pass.

Her eyes darted quickly to it and then immediately back to my face. In a cold tone she said, “Yes.”

“The flight is in five hours, should I go to the gate now or wait somewhere else?” I asked.

“You cannot stay here,” was all she said.

“Ok,” I said. “And besides my liquids, do I need to remove anything else from my bag.”

Her straight, curt face turned to a frown. “You need to remove your belt and jacket; any big electronics go through alone, and liquids.”

“And my shoes?” I asked.

“Keep them on,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

She didn’t respond. It was the first conversation where I felt like a foreigner. I don’t know if it was something I said, the way I looked, or just my American accent, but she was clearly irritated by me.

I got in line and did as she had instructed. Unlike in the US, no on looked at my boarding pass or ID. I was worried that perhaps I’d missed some checkpoint. Would I be able to board the plane without a stamped boarding pass?

“Need any help, sir?” one of the security guards asked as I set my laptop into a bin.

“Um, yes,” I said. “Do I need a stamp for my boarding pass?” I showed it to him.

“A stamp?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, presenting my previous pass. “They stamped my other pass in the states when I flew over.”

“Oh,” he said, acting confused. “I haven’t seen that before. I would say you are ok.”

“Thank you,” I said, relieved, and set them both on top of my jacket.

“Let’s keep those safe,” he said and hid them under my jacket.

I went through the metal detector when called. It beeped.

“Please step into the x-ray machine, sir,” the woman said. I did so. “Your feet on the yellow feet, and arms above your head.” The British accents were still enchanting to me.

The x-ray spun around me.

“Step this way, sir,” a man said. His skin was darker and he had a large beard, but his accent was still iconic of London.  We waited a second. “The machine says there is an area of concern under your left arm. I am going to have to frisk you.”

“Ok,” I agreed. I had become very self-conscious of how my voice sounded after the encounter with the woman in purple. He put on gloves and asked me to put out my arms. He ran he hands around both arms, up and down my body and legs. I certainly understood where the TSA jokes came from now.

“You are fine, sir,” he said.

“Thank you,” I responded. I returned to my stuff which was waiting for me. I packed up my computer, put on my jacket, and made sure that I had all of my papers and money.

As I rounded the corner, I came upon a series of desks where people were checking in for their flights. Holding my boarding pass, I tried to figure out which line to get in.

“If you have a boarding pass, you don’t have to wait,” a voice told me. It was the security guard that had told me I didn’t need a stamp. That’s when I realized these people really were just checking in. Actually, only some of them were checking in; the others were family and friends who were dropping people off. They were allowed to come and wait in the terminal.

Continuing on into the terminal was another shock. It took me a few minutes to piece together what was happening, but when I did, I was amazed. The lighted board with departures listed gates, but the gates weren’t assigned until the planes were ready. Only five or six gates were actually assigned, the rest just said, “Gate opens at xx:xx” (xx:xx noting the time the gate opened.) Everyone waited in a central seating area. The seating area was surrounded by what resembled a full size mall.

There were electronic shops, food courts, department stores, jewelry stores, perfume shops, book stores, etc. I walked around for a while looking for a cell phone that I could use on the continent. When the cheapest I could find was 600 euro (roughly $1,062 by the Saturday exchange rate.) I decided I’d wait till Prague to buy one.

I looked at a few restaurants for lunch but was again shocked by the price. Not wanting to spend $50 on my layover meal, I decided I’d again keep looking. I was surprised how different London felt America. While the language was the same, the subtle social nuances were different. Things like eye contact and body language didn’t look right. People seemed very serious and very busy. I felt more than a little out of place.

As I stumbled back into the central seating area, I looked up at the departure board. My gate still wasn’t assigned. As I looked down into the crowd, I saw Britney looking up at the board on the other side. She looked down and saw me.

“Hey! I found you,” she said. I walked over to meet her. “This Laura,” she said, introducing me to her travel companion.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“You too,” she said.

“We were going to get something to eat,” Britney said. “You want to join us?”

“Sure,” I said.

We found an area to sit and dumped our stuff. “I can watch everything if you guys want to go find a restaurant,” I offered.

“Oh that’s awesome,” Laura said. “We’ll be back in like 5 minutes.”

I sat down and pulled out my laptop. I’d jotted down a few notes on the plane and wanted to record them to the blog before I forgot what my own shorthand meant. The girls were gone for quite awhile, but I was lost in writing and remembering, so I didn’t really notice.

When they got back they’d gotten sandwiches from a deli. “They’re hand made,” they said. “We can watch the stuff if you want to go get one.”

“That’s ok,” I said. “I’m writing right now.”

“For a blog,” Britney guessed.

“Yea,” I said.

“That’s awesome, you should show me how to do that when we get there,” she said.

I was just getting to describe the plane taking off when my battery icon showed it was low. The wifi at Heathrow was only free for 15 minutes, so I decided to go ahead and publish it. I did so, and also fired off a few emails back home. As my free session timed out, so did my battery. With the laptop dead, I put it away.

“We can watch your stuff now,” Laura offered. For a moment, I considered that it went against everything I’d be taught and practiced to trust these total strangers with my stuff, but I also realized trusting other was going to be the only way to get through this trip.

Leaving my stuff in their watchful care, I left to get food. I went to the same deli and sure enough, everything looked fresh and said “hand made on site.” Several times I stood in what I thought was the line, only to learn that—like personal space—lines differed slightly in England.

I ordered a roast beef sandwich, a side of yogurt, and water (with gas just to be traditional.) When I got back to the seats, Laura and Britney were talking with a family. They were from Manchester and were leaving on holiday. They told us stories about people they’ve met from Prague—although they had never been there.

"It will be good for you all to get out of America for a while,” he said. “Americans take life way too seriously.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Take airport security,” he said. “In America, they are so serious about it. They are mean and demanding. You have to take off so many clothes and in customs they make you answer so many questions. Here, it is just a job. They realize they don’t have to be mean to feel good about their jobs. It doesn’t define them, it’s just a job.”

“I did notice that the security was much lighter here,” I said.

“America is so fearful,” he said. “Just look at the ridiculous arguments they use about their guns.”

I didn’t agree with all of his input, but he was clearly up-to-date on current events in America. His stories and anecdotes were hilarious, including one about an Australian friend of theirs who missed a flight because—like us—he was confused by the terminal and gate assignment system. I am still disappointed that I never learned his name because, unlike the lady in purple, he was jovial and friendly.

“Have a great holiday,” he said when his flight was finally called. “Enjoy every minute of it.”

As we continued to wait for our flight to call we chatted a little about our majors, our families, and our hopes for the trip. We did some people watching, making observations on some of the social oddities and attitudes we observed. We met a few British students who were going on a trip to New York. They asked us many of the same questions we asked them.

With 10 minutes until our flight was going to be called Laura and I ran into a candy store. She bought gum and I looked for chocolate. While I couldn’t find anything that interesting, I did pick up a Toblerone bar. At the self-check-out kiosk, not only did I have to swipe my boarding pass to begin but it asked me if I needed a plastic bag (had I said “yes” I would have been charged 1 Euro extra.)

When our gate was posted (#24), we immediately went there. They checked our boarding passes at the counter and then took us back into a glass room to wait. That was the first time we heard it: Czech. It was fast, it was incoherent, and it didn’t sound anything like I’d imagined.

This was going to be fun!