We left yesterday early in the morning and its now noon, Paris time. Only, we’re not in Paris. We are stuck in London at Heathrow Airport. After waiting on the tarmac for two hours at JFK before taking off (it could have been worse though—by the time we took off, there were approximately 100 planes waiting to take-off behind us), we missed our connecting flight from London to Paris. When we de-boarded our tardy flight at Heathrow, we had about 30-40 minutes to make it to our final flight. Our optimism was slowly shattered as we began to realize how big Heathrow is. After walking a long ways we boarded a shuttle to the next terminal. Twenty minutes later, after driving through what I thought was an extensive road system for an airport, we arrived at our terminal. We waited in a long line for a security check, and waited a little bit longer while Matt got patted down by the guard. Finally we came to monitors showing our flight’s status: final boarding, Gate 23. I began to run, Matt followed, and together we dodged the oncoming traffic of passengers and luggage. A sign pointed to Gates 22-24 just down the hallway—the longest hallway ever. We continued to go as fast as we could to the gate, but when we arrived we discovered that our plane had already left. Dejected and very much out of breath (I haven’t run like that since playing soccer in jr. high!), we slowly made our way all the way back to the ticket counter by the security checkpoint and joined dozens of other passengers who had also missed their connecting flights due to the fiasco at JFK. Our flight keeps getting pushed back in 30 minute increments, so I have no idea when we will end up leaving this place. Luckily the airport is a good place to people watch. Mostly I am enjoying checking out everyone’s clothes. After packing up the apartment a month ago, I’ve pretty much been wearing the same 5 outfits over and over, so it is nice to see some variety in someone’s wardrobe, even if it isn’t mine.:-)

If you decide to go for the orange pants, be sure to spring for the socks too.

Post-flight:
After 8 hours in London and 40 minutes in the air, Matt and I finally arrived in Paris, minus one bag. Four days later, still no bag. Hopefully we will get it before leaving Europe; among other things, I miss my full-sized tooth brush. I have, however, seen many more people wearing orange pants. Maybe I will get some for Matt…