Goodbye London, Hello Again USA--In Chicago After Ages!

Saturday, September 20, 2025

London-Atlanta-Chicago

Goodbye London, Hello Again USA--In chicago After Ages.

My last morning in London saw me awake at 3.00 am (I had set my alarm for 6.00 am) and unable to sleep a wink after. I actually sat on the phone and chatted with my friend, Maria, as it was mid-day in Bombay and she had just texted me. From then on, I kept thinking of my departure and somehow, butterflies somersaulted in my tummy and kept me awake. At 5.00 am, I simply gave up, decided to go down for a shower and got the last-minute elements of my packing done.

At 6.30 am, we found a car parked in the street and realized it was my Uber. Roz, who had awoken to say Bye to me, had made me a cup of decaff coffee and given me a wrapped madeleine to take for the way--I was so grateful for that coffee as it would not be until 10.30 am before I put the first morsel in my mouth and I’d have been starving. Anyway…I wished her a very sad goodbye and said Thanks before I left for the airport.

Journey to Heathrow:

It was my fault that I listened to Roz who told me that 2 hours before my departure would be plenty of time to leave for the airport (I usually give it three). As it turned out, although our departure from Battersea through several side streets went very smoothy (with London fast asleep on a weekend morning), about 20 minutes before we reached Heathrow, traffic had piled up and was simply not moving. The collection of traffic lights on the rotary circles just before the Terminals causes this pile up. I was very nervous as it was already about 7.00 am and my flight was leaving at 9.20 am. I ought to have been there by 6.20. Eventually, after all the slow stops and starts, we got to the Terinal at 7.30 am. Mamma Mia! I was really scared and already started praying that I would not miss my flight.

Chaos at Heathrow:

Imagine my anguish then, when I arrived inside the Virgin Atlantic Terminal (3) and found the place simply swimming with people. There were thousands of people around and chaos everywhere. It turned out that they’d had a “technical glitch” that caused the computers to stop functioning. All check-in had to be done manually and staff were helping people go to the machines and get their boarding passes. I was very fortunate to find a very helpful traffic assistant who helped me get my baggage tags and boarding pass. But then I had to pass through a barrier and get into a line for Baggage Drop-Off. This was a line with hundreds of people ahead of me, winding for many lengths through that part of the Terminal. One of the personnel had told me that if I was still in the line at 8.00 am, I ought to contact one of the Personnel who would take me up the line faster. And that was what I did. I called out to a passing assistant, who got me out of the queue and straight to the counter where my bags were weighed. There was a long conversation with the clerk and someone on a phone as he told them the weight of my two bags (one just 13 kg and the other 20 kgs—I was allowed 23 kgs in each bag—so I was well within my weight allowance). After keeping me waiting for ages, he did approve of my departure and told me all was well.

Funnily enough, after this terribly fearful start, Security Clearance went really well and quickly. I am delighted to find that Heathrow has abandoned its stupid practice of making passengers remove all liquids and creams form their carry-on baggage and placing them in tiny, transparent plastic bags. This practice (not seen at any other international airport—and a terrible result of 9/11) would cause an awful waste of time, unnecessary anxiety and a general feeling of irritation. Now, all we are told is to make sure we remove jackets and belts—everything else can stay in the bag including laptops!

Well, once I’d cleared Security, all that was left was to go through the gates. It was already about 8.40 and my boarding was supposed to start soon. I did not even pause to use the rest room but made the long trek to my gate. Yes, everyone was anxious and relieved to be in the holding pen for passengers and to find that the departure was not delayed.

This fact became extra significant since it turned out that the “technical glitch” was a major cyber attack on airports in Florence, Brussels and London which grounded hundreds of planes from Europe and caused major delays and cancellations at Heathrow. By the time I was at my destination in Atlanta, I had already received links from Llew and a friend, Bande, about the chaos that had engulfed Heathrow and how lucky I was to have escaped the confusion. Well…just about. This has taught me never to under-estimate the amount of time it will take at any airport—better safe than sorry (I really ought to know this by now, as a very seasoned traveler).

A Fairly Pleasant Flight from London to Atlanta:

I have to say that I had been misinformed by the same traffic clerk who had kept me waiting while he was on the phone checking out the weight of my baggage, that I’d have to pick up my baggage in Atlantic where I had to make a connection to Chicago. I thought this was rather bizarre myself as Delta was going to operate both sectors of this journey on behalf of Virgin Atlantic. However, who was I to argue with him—I asked him twice and he confirmed that I would have to pick up the baggage again in Atlanta after deplaning and would need to go through check-in again before embarking for the next phase of my journey. This was especially strange as I had already received boarding passes for both parts of my journey. Anyway…as I said, nothing went smoothly for me on this trip.

The flight itself was reasonably comfortable. I had a window seat and was thrilled—only to discover that it was directly above the wing—hence, I could not see a thing! Anyway, it did not bother me because within seconds, we were up in the clouds and all visibility vanished. I also had a very nice man seated by me who was super polite (Yes Mam, No Mam, etc. throughout the flight) and helped put my bag up. Fairly quickly, in fact, I needed to get it down as I wanted my laptop out of it to do some writing. I was starving by the time the breakfast trolley came around. They asked if I wanted Chicken or Pasta and I chose the first and gave myself up fully to the pleasure of eating a breast of chicken with (tasteless) risotto and a side of boiled beans—well, I would practically eat anything, by this point. There was a piece of focaccia with butter, a cold salad of mixed beans and barley and a sweet of caramel tiramisu which was actually quite nice. No alcohol was served at that hour of the morning, so I opted for a tomato juice. Later in the flight, while the Drinks trolley went around, I asked for a gin and tonic but was told they had no gin. I was given vodka instead and I had that with lime and ice. There were snacks at the far end of the aircraft, to which we could help ourselves and I ended up nibbling on cheese crackers.

Throughout the flight I watched Season Four of ‘Yellowstone’ as all five seasons were available. I was absolutely thrilled as I had watched three seasons at home and had tried hard to find 4 and 5 but without any luck. There are 11 episodes of approximately one hour each—so by the time I was landing at Chicago (with two flights to take me there), I had finished watching 8 seasons. It kept me completely absorbed and the time flew.

We arrived at Atlanta, by which time I was informed by everyone that my baggage would go through to Chicago and I need not pick them up at all. Phew! What a relief. In fact, since Atlanta was our first port of Arrival in the USA, we cleared Immigration here. I was able to go into the ‘Connecting Flight Global Entry Pass’ line which took only five minutes to clear up. I was happy to see that my Global Entry Renewal at LAX last year had worked (although I never received a new card in the mail

Out at Atlanta, a very large airport, I saw that my flight was not announced on the Departures board even though there was just 90 minutes in-between and in time for my next departure. I was advised to go the Information Desk where the clerk was equally foxed before he realized that Delta was going to opera the the Virgin Atlantic flight. I was advised to go two flights down to take a monorail train to Terminal D (we were at F) from where I would find my Gate (D9A). And from then on, it was indeed very smooth. I followed instructions, took the train and arrived at my gate with about 45 minutes to spare. This finally gave me the chance to send out texts through airport wifi to many folks that I had landed safely and was headed on a connecting flight to Chicago.

Our flight left on time and, in a much smaller plane, I had an aisle seat. The crew did a beverage service with crackers, but I was not hungry at all and gladly had just a glass of sparkling water. The flight landed on time but I did not realize that Chicago is an hour behind New York or Atlanta. So while I thought I would be there at 5.00 pm, it was actually at 4.00 pm that we landed. Still, it all worked out well. I was able to retrieve my baggage and follow my friend Marielou’s instructions for pick up from the Passenger Pick up outside. I realized that I’d made a mistake with the time as my phone clock’s GPS gave me the correct time of 4.30 while I had adjusted my wrist watch to 5.30 pm—always go by your phone’s clock—as it is always right!

I waited for about 15-20 minutes before Marielou arrived, placed my baggage into her truck and we were off. I did not realize that Northbrook, where she lives is only a 15 minute drive from the airport—so we were in her quiet suburb within 15 minutes and 5 minutes later, we were pulling into her driveway and being greeted by her very noisy dogs, Pixel and Wiggles. Yes, they are small dogs, but boy are they nois! It was an uproarious welcome for me, for sure.

First Evening at Marielou’s:

So, we had a very relaxed first evening together. I had made the awful discovery that the can of Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate I had bought in London had popped its lid (a flimsy plastic lid and nothing like the old tins we used to get). It had spilled all over he contents of my bag. After sitting down with a mug of herbal tea with cheese and delicious fig and almond crackers for snacking on and watching Marilou dish up dinner (she refused to let me help this evening and said she would put me to work from tomorrow onwards), we were ready for dinner—ML picked up an eggplant from her beautiful garden together with some basil and with frozen pumpkin and lentil soup and wonderful quesadillas that she made with fresh veg like zucchini, eggplant and mushrooms with a sparse sprinkling of grated cheese, it was a very tasty dinner that we really enjoyed.

Dinner through, I dealt with the pesky task of getting my suitcase into my room (on the ground floor—so not many steps) and had the horrific discovery that every item from my strolley would have to be dusted, cleaned and washed as everything was covered with the fine dust of drinking chocolate. Yes, everything smelt wonderful but oh what a bother it was! I did all the cleaning in the shower stall in my en suite bathroom which then made it very easy for ML to simply vacuum the whole thing. Exactly half the can had spilled out, but I was able to save the other half. What a mess! By the time I finished cleaning it all, my back was aching it was almost 9.00 pm (past midnight in London) and I was ready for bed.

And on that tiring note, I went into my room, did most of my unpacking and fell asleep.

I have to say that it felt great to be in the USA again after a little over a year. One feels as if one has never left because immediately everything looks completely familiar. I know that we have a relaxed morning tomorrow, but I do hope we will be able to get to church for Mass.

Until tomorrow, see ya…