A Hop, Skip and a Jump...

Good Bye Heart Home...

09-05-09 Saturday


Ah, perhaps it is time to head home. I wake up at 2:45 a.m. and whether it is because of my possible sighing/moaning/name-it, or whether it is because of my restless log roll trying to get comfortable, or even if it is because I am feeling bittersweet about leaving Scotland, I cannot get back to sleep. I turn the TV on to while away the morning hours and groggily try to find something on in this wee hour of the morning. CG wakes, asks if I am ok, and then goes back to sleep when I tell him yes. Finally, to the pleasant drone of British accents on the BBC, I fall asleep at 3:30, only to be re-awakened at 5:00 by the wakeup call placed last night through the front desk (ugh).

We are ready by 5:45 in anticipation of the shuttle at 6:00 and take advantage of the luggage scale in the lobby (thank goodness they are both well under the 50 lb limit – even with the spirited stones!). We are not the only ones on the shuttle this morning (it picks up more passengers the closer we get to the airport), and CG and I sit apart from each in the now crowded cab.

We extricate ourselves, grab our luggage and head inside. After walking nearly the length of the terminal, we realize that our airline’s ticket counter hasn’t opened yet, and we sit down and wait. Finally, as the line grows ahead of us, the lights go on over the KLM counter and we take our place behind the crowd.

After getting our tickets we head towards the gate and, after locating it, we decide to do a little last souvenir shopping, and then grab some breakfast to pass the time before our flight leaves at 8:30. We are pleasantly surprised to find that the airport restaurant we have chosen has our favorite on the menu, and CG has one last full Scottish breakfast while I polish off a bacon/scrambled egg Panini. Then it’s back to Gate 33 where we mill around until our seats are called.

However, when the KLM employee comes out at 8:00, she has some bad news for all of us – due to technical difficulties, the flight from Amsterdam has been turned back and therefore our flight has been cancelled. We all have to be escorted by airport personnel back to reclaim our baggage and then stand in a queue for two hours before we are able to rebook our flight.

By the time we get back to our new gate, we don’t have much time to linger as the flight to Amsterdam leaves at 11:30 and, after landing in the Netherlands, we literally have to run to our next gate to catch our connecting flight to Detroit (instead of returning through Minneapolis). The flight seems doubly long this time and I take advantage of the in-flight movies to watch both Grand Torino (CG also watches that one from his seat) and Hairspray.

The flight home from Detroit seems shorter, but we are still anxious to get off of the airplane and back into the Saab waiting for us in the airport parking lot.

After paying a whopping $99 to leave the airport parking lot, we are home by 10:00 p.m. – some 15 hours and 7 time zones later. AM has left a somewhat frantic message for me to call back so I return her call. Seems as though she thought we were returning the day before, and she had been worried that she hadn’t heard from us. After putting her to ease, I am in bed by midnight and CG, still a bit keyed up and having missed his favorite home activity, plays World of Warcraft until 1:30 a.m.

We are home!