Student Bloggers

To put it simply, Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I have already experienced this phenomenon a couple of times since being abroad, so I thought I would share my stories and give my advice for how to deal with disaster in the next two posts.

The first crisis struck me at the London Heathrow Airport. My first flight to Philadelphia had gone off without a hitch. It was very easy for me to get to my second flight in the Philadelphia airport, which would take me to London. I didn’t even have to go back through security, or find a terminal far away. So being the inexperienced traveller that I am, I thought I would also have plenty of time to get to my next flight in the airport in London. I asked the flight attendants on my international flight if I would need a landing card, because Edinburgh was my final destination, and they said I would fill one out when I got there, and didn’t need one then. I also asked them if they thought it would be easy for me to get to my flight, or if I would need to pass through security again to get to the flight. Again they assured me that it would be no problem, and that I should make it just fine. So I got off the plane, went to the bathroom, and started leisurely on my way to the other plane.

It turned out that everything they had told me was wrong, and I really should have had a fire lit under my butt, and much more information about how to get to my flight. I ended up needing to take a short train ride to another part of the airport, and go quite far and up a bunch of escalators to get to the point of entry for the United Kingdom. Once I saw that I was going to need to go through customs, and that my boarding time was quickly approaching, my heart started racing. As I was waiting in line, unsure where to go, or how long it would take me, I got majorly stressed out. I did in fact need a landing card, as this was my first point of entry into the country, and my next flight was domestic. I also did have to go through another security line that I was not aware of. 

As I was waiting in the security line stressed out of my mind, with about 10 minutes until boarding was supposed to close, I forgot to empty my water bottle that was in my backpack. This meant that I had to wait for the TSA agent to dump it out and re-scan my bag. When I saw my backpack going the other way, instead of towards me, I almost started crying right then and there. The man handling my backpack was very nice to me and told me what gate I was supposed to be at, because I didn’t even yet have that information, and how to get there. Of course, it wasn’t the closest gate, so I went down an escalator and literally ran to the gate with a probably 30 plus pound carry on, and a well over 10 pound backpack on my back. Luckily, they were just starting boarding when I showed up, and I had never been more thankful for the inefficiency of the airline industry in my whole entire life. 

Walking on the plane, trying to slow my heart rate, I stopped when I saw an agent who looked like he could help me double check that my checked luggage got on the plane. In San Francisco, my flight was being run by American Airlines, and the woman at the counter where I checked in my bag told me I would need to re-check my bag at Heathrow. As you can tell, I clearly didn’t have enough time to worry about this, and had asked the flight attendants about that, and they said by bag would have been checked all the way through. This turned out to be the only correct information they gave me. The man I asked confirmed this, but looked at my carry on, that had just been on two flights and told me I needed to check it because it was too large. Having run into this on Southwest, I didn’t think anything of it, because they usually just hand it down to the baggage crew, and it gets right on the plane. It just so happens, that is not the way things work here. I found this out when I got to Edinburgh. I was waiting for my bags, and only my checked one showed up. Very annoyed and tired, I went to the baggage office, and they informed me that my bag was still in London. Not the best way to start out my trip, right? But they assured me it should be there by the end of the day because it was so close, and that they would deliver it to my hotel. Luckily, my bag showed up that night, and everything was all right.

To be continued…