The Bartons go to Europe

Em and I have been pretty fortunate since getting married three years ago.

Two weeks in Hawaii, a week in Alaska, two weeks in Central America via the Panama Canal, and earlier this month -- nearly three weeks in Europe.

Across the next few weeks, we're going to share our trip... day by day by day.

How we got started
Back in December, Em and I went to the company Christmas party -- our sole reason for going being the possibility of winning airline tickets.

We went to the same party two years ago and weren't among the fortunate prize winners. This last year was a bit different though -- amid shrieks of surprise and happiness Em and I won 2 roundtrip tickets on Air New Zealand.

Not sure I've ever heard Em scream and giggle so loudly; it was a surprise for sure.. lots of happiness. And a big help towards our end goal of vacationing in Europe -- a couple days in Paris, one in Barcelona, then a 12-day Mediterranean cruise.

But then we started the process of trying to actually use the tickets, which was an entirely different experience.

Blackout dates... can't book more than 60 days out... $500 per leg in taxes... can't get our Air New Zealand contact on the phone, etc, etc, etc.

At the end of the day, we were able to book a flight from Los Angeles to London (then fly from London to Paris), but had to pay our own way from London back home. Not the end of the world, but certainly not 2 free roundtrip tickets.

LAX -> London
Our flight left Los Angeles around 4:00 p.m. We ended up making amazing time down the 405 and got to LAX at noon... a bit earlier than the 3 hours required suggested for international flights.

So we walk into the airport and see this.

If you can't read it, that's a sign reading "We will open at 1:30 p.m." Neat. Swell, even.

So, hyped up for our European trip of a lifetime, Em and I sit outside the airport for 90 minutes before we can even check-in our bags.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 4:30. At 5:30, a frustrated Emma and Ryan were still standing outside a gate in Terminal 2 waiting to board our flight. First impressions of Air New Zealand weren't exactly ideal.

On a 10-hour flight, I suppose you can still make-up some time, but still... it wasn't the beginning of the trip we expected.

The plane was nice and big, new, and had a great selection of TV episodes, movies, news and games that was available for each traveler on the headrest in front of them.

About 20-minutes after taking off, the captain comes on the intercom and advises there were labor strikes affecting all public and government employees in London. "But we don't want you to stress out just yet," he finished.

What does this mean for us? There would likely be big delays waiting for us because of Britain Border Control strikes.

Not good considering we had a connecting flight at Heathrow, in a separate terminal.

A separate terminal means we had to get off our plane, go through customs, get our luggage, take the train from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4, check in for our Air France flight to Paris, go through security and make our way to our new gate.

About a week before, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with a panic attack about this flight connection. Heathrow's website estimated that landing, getting our luggage, going through customs and security and getting through the other terminal would take about 90 minutes. And we only had 115 between the time our Air New Zealand flight landed and the Air France flight took off.

So I forked up another $500 and pushed back our Air France flight to its next departure -- two hours later. I figured it'd be worth a two hour wait to make sure we actually got to Paris. Plus, we didn't want to start off our vacation sprinting through an airport desperately trying to get to our flight.

Back on the plane, we tried to relax, watched a few movies, a couple TV shows, and unsuccessfully tried to sleep.

Just over nine hours later -- flying over northern North America via Canada, a little bit of Greeland, and then back south to the UK -- we began flying over London.

And that in itself was pretty amazing -- to look down on Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Bridge, London Eye (that big ferris wheel), and Wembley Stadium -- I didn't expect to see all that in 2 minutes.

Ceiling in Heathrow's Terminal 4

We were happy to land (we left Wednesday, we arrived Thursday), happy to be in London (even if we never left the airport area), but we were exhausted; and we still had to get through customs and connect to another flight before our first leg as over.

Before making our way to baggage claim (to see if we'd have clothes for the next 16 days), we had to conquer Britain Border Control -- the same labor strike-stricken obstacle.

Fortunately for us, our terminal wasn't Heathrow's big international terminal, and despite the strike, we made it through customs, baggage claim (with all of our bags, yay), took the subway to Terminal 4, checked-in on our Air France flight, checked our bags, made it through another layer of security and arrived at our gate without about an hour to spare.

That 3:00 a.m. panic attack was worth it; we made it to London, we made it for our connecting flight to Paris, found a Starbucks in the terminal and collapsed.

NEXT POST
London -> Paris
Day 1 in Paris