My Journey Home

So! It just occurred to me that although I had said that I was home and had talked about how I was going to get home prior to leaving, that I never actually went over my trip home and the details of it.  Oopsie!  So I just thought I'd do a little post about that because, like some of my other trips, the journey home was quite an adventure!!  (And just for the record, I think 'adventure' can be in either a negative or positive way)

As I'm sure I mentioned before, the last few days in Glasgow were a bit ... crazy, in a way.  Sometimes I was so bored that I didn't know what to do with myself, and sometimes I was so busy that I wished I could pause time just to be able to get everything done.

The day before I left, I had finally managed to get all my bags packed, with the unfortunate bonus of having to pay for one of my bags to be overweight.  Joyful!  Spent a while Skyping with my mom, trying to pack a carry on bag (ended up with two :-\), and then at 3 am on the 20th, I started bringing my bags down (I wanted to give myself plenty of time incase it was ridiculously hard).  Speaking of which, whew, that was really really tough.  Glad I don't have to do that again.  Heavy bags are heavy.  But I eventually got all of my stuff downstairs and into the common room.  Then sadly, I discovered that there was no possible way to include everything that I had in either my luggage or my carry on, so I wound up donating a few more things (that I didn't want to, like my Christmas Crackers).  Finally, a little before 5 am, my taxi pulled up outside of Cairncross House.

This is where the fun started.

The first sort of "issue" was that I had been kind of hoping (expecting?) that my cab driver would be able to help me get my bags into the cab.  Not really sure why I thought this but, its true.  And unfortunately, my cab driver was both not capable of getting my bags into the cab, and insistent on doing it.  Which leads to me awkwardly standing nearby and trying to help this guy lift my luggage in.  This was also an issue when we finally got to the airport and he tried to lift the luggage out.  And also when, after getting me a luggage cart, he tried to lift the luggage onto it.  (Each time I had to basically force my way past him and get the bags).  I gave him a tip - I don't care about those stupid British no tipping laws.

The second issue is that I'm still not certain whether or not he was drunk.  Either that or he was extremely tired.  But I was definitely concerned.  Made it there in one piece though, hurray!

Got to the airport around 5:15 or so, but unfortunately the check in desk for my flight was open yet.  And for whatever weird reason, there is no real area to wait in the airport prior to check in.  So I waited with my trolley on the floor for an hour.  Then the real trouble began.

When checking in for the flight, my luggage was weighed, and the fact that the one bag was overweight was acknowledged, blah blah blah.  But then she asks the question I'd been afraid of hearing... how much hand luggage did I have?  And unfortunately for me, although I had "one carry on and one personal item", which was allowed, it appeared that I had close to 40 pounds of it.  Oopsie again.  Not allowed.  So my only choices at this point was to either pay 200 Euros (or pounds, I'm not sure) for a 3rd bag (in addition to the 75 for the second bag and 75 for overweight), or try to fit everything extra into my other suitcase that wasn't overweight, and pay 75 for the second bag, 75 for the first one being overweight and 75 for the second one being overweight.  So I went through my luggage on the floor of the airport and made all/most of the second carry on fit into the other suitcase.  Had to throw out some things, however, including my green messenger bag that was my carryon on the way to Glasgow.  Not thrilled about that, but... what could I do.  So I go back (because my luggage has to be weighed again).  They weigh it, tag it, take it, and send me on my way to pay for the luggage (a different desk)

Then the next problem comes up.  I only had enough money (both on my emergency credit card, and in my bank account), to cover the original plan of the fee for a second bag and the overweight fee.  Not two overweight fees.  I try to use my credit card just incase it will go through anyway (you never know).  But it doesn't.  Starting to panic because the only other thing I have is my debit card, and I don't really WANT that to go through because if it does, its going to cause SOO much in overdraft fees.  "Fortunately" it doesn't go through.  But now I'm stuck.  Its around 7 am, my flight is at 8:15, they have my bags, and I have no way of paying for them.

My only option (and it literally takes me about 45 seconds to come to this decision), is to call my parents internationally, on my UK cellphone with less than a pound of credit, at 2 in the morning their time.  Yay.  (Sorry again, Mom and Dad).  They end up giving a credit card number over the phone, thank God.  And I get to go on my way.  I've basically lost all sense of time at this point (what with the shaking and crying and all of that), that I've convinced myself that I'm going to miss my flight.  But I go through security with no issues, walk the 800 miles to my gate, and sit numbly for the 25 minutes before my flight boarded.  Guess I wasn't running late after all.

Flight goes well, land in Amsterdam.  Now, I have been looking forward to going to the Amsterdam airport for ... months?  Because one of the places that I wanted to travel to but didn't get the chance was Amsterdam.  And I wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to get some neat souvenirs - even if I didn't technically visit Amsterdam.  So I stop in one of the little souvenir shops, finally end up with a tiny little pair of ceramic shoes (I obviously didn't want to use my credit card after the fiasco with my luggage) that was around 3 Euros.  But nope, the guy in the store wouldn't allow me to buy it without my boarding pass!  Which I didn't have because it was a different airline than what you could check in for in Glasgow.  And by the time I finally found where to check in and had gotten my boarding pass, I was 800 miles away from all of the little stores (including one that apparently sold all elephant things!!!).  So I didn't get a single thing from Amsterdam!

Fortunately the rest of my trip went fairly smooth, minus just the normal airport frustrations, like waiting in line at Immigrations and going through Customs and such.  But I got through that part and met up with my parents (yay!) and it was sooo nice to finally be home (even if I wasn't home, I was just in Philadelphia). 

I don't know what it is about trying to get home from someplace, but it apparently has to be difficult.  Would still do it all over again, though. 

Sorry for the long post but I have an inability to leave details out! 

Oh and if anyone has been to the Elephant Store in the Amsterdam Airport, could you please tell me that nothing is for sale or that each one costs a million dollars or something - to make me feel better?