Holiday Travel Trauma, aka Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Plane (Attempt #1) – Friday 17 December
My flight to DC was due to depart Heathrow at 2:50. At 2:30 we’re told there is a 30-min delay for de-icing and that once we board we will have to be de-iced again. On board the captain reports the wait for de-icing is 1.5 – 2.5 hrs, probably more on the 2.5 side! At least our in-flight entertainment is started, during which I watch Eat, Pray, Love (book was much better). Capt comes back on and says it will now be Another hour! We have now been on plane for 3.5 hrs with just beverages, no food. Rumours start flying about how at this point they will probably cancel flight as flight crew can’t be on duty that many hours. Sure enough, at the 4-hr mark, captain comes on and says ‘The Company has advised us that the flight has been cancelled’. Cabin crew announce that they realise we must be hungry (no kidding) and will start to heat up dinners as there have been many cancelled flights and they don’t know when we’ll be able to disembark. Whoops, 10 mins later they come back on and say we’ve been given priority to disembark. There is then a mad dash for exit as people are furiously trying to re-book. Many, many, many thanks to Mom, Kait and Fiona who were all manning the phones and web to get me rebooked to flight on Monday. We then make it to baggage hall to try and get bags back. Key word there is try. After 3.5 hours of basically no information and no bags (and no food! – save for digestive biscuits I finally remembered were in my carry-on. Ann Y– your preference for these cookies saved the passengers of flight 265), T5 announces they are closing baggage hall and we will have to call/check online to find out about our bags. I then head back to my flat and basically play hermit all weekend.

Plane (Attempt #2) – Monday 20 December
After a snowy weekend with Heathrow completely shut, the airport re-opens Monday and at time I leave flat, my flight is still showing scheduled. I get to Terminal 5 and anyone using the term ‘madhouse’ would not be accused of crazy talk. I finally find a BA staff member to ask about how/where I can get my bags. He sends me to the bowels of the terminal to the Baggage Customer Service counter. While there on the queue I don’t have access to see departure boards. A few minutes later my sis in the States calls to report my flight has been cancelled!! By this point there is no room to be had on flights for Tues, Weds or Thur because of all the cancelled flights from weekend. We then decide to punt on flying before Xmas and get me re-booked for Sunday 26 Dec. My flatmate’s family had kindly invited me to join them for the holiday, so I look on the bright side of life and think hey, this way I get two Christmases – one in Yorkshire and one in Virginia.

I then head back again from Heathrow to my flat, but without my bags!! Turns out they are ‘in the system’ and will be sent to destination on next available flight. Do not get me started on how inane this is – a) what if I don’t go to destination after all, b) what about all those security rules, c) airport was closed all weekend, surely bags are still in airport?. But noo….bags got to Dulles a few days before I did so I then spend the next week with just my carry on and 'C-list' winter clothes still at flat.

Train (Attempt #1) – Tuesday 21 December
Stuart and I head to King’s Cross for an 11:30 train to York. We get to station about 10:30 and I am literally extracting my ticket from the kiosk when everyone’s mobile starts going off and the departure board starts blinking. Was like something out of a film. Turns out because of power line problems, all trains out of King’s Cross have been Cancelled!! OMG, are you kidding me? I’m Gretchen the Christmas jinx! Stu quickly calls his mom to find out other options, which are to go to Euston and get train to Manchester or Birmingham and then switch to a York train.

Train (Attempt #2) – Tuesday 21 December
We go running down Euston Rd (past the gi-normous Eurostar queue which by now is snaking way beyond British Library!) and get to station. Again, anyone using the term ‘madhouse’ would not be accused of crazy talk. Some trains there have also been cancelled but we finally get on an 11:45 train to Manchester, which about 30 minutes out stalls because of power issues!! Seriously! All is not lost though as we make our way to next station where the engineers fix the issue (now putting us back about 45 minutes late for Manchester arrival). Fortunately there’s a train to York leaving soon after we arrive and we finally get to Knaresborough around 6pm!

Weds 22 Dec – Sat 25 Dec: Have a great time with the Cunningham clan (roll on Wii Bowling and Cycling!) and enjoy my first English Christmas.

Automobile (Attempt #1) – Sunday 26 December
My flight is scheduled for 4:30pm, leaving plenty of time to get to airport from Yorkshire. Oh wait! It’s Boxing Day in the UK and turns out there are no trains/buses running! I then pull out the credit card to book the Harrogate Airport Transfer Car Service. At 10am I feel like a movie star as a black Mercedes pulls up with Andy the driver all done up in a suit. It’s a nice sunny day in Yorkshire and we are well on our way south to the airport. After about 3 hrs we hit some traffic, but Andy re-assures me we are only about 20 miles from airport so we should be fine.

Plane (Attempt #3) – Sunday 26 December
“Should be fine” is still out there in the ether of the S-class when my mobile rings. It’s mom with some bad news. Due the expected snowmaggeddon on the East Coast, all flights to DC have been, yeah, you guessed it..Cancelled! My sister, the BA-rebooking Queen, gets me on a flight into Baltimore the next afternoon. Time to head back to my flat from Heathrow…Again! But oh wait, the Heathrow Express trains are having track signal failures AND there is a tube strike! ARRGH! As I head away in disgust from tube platform, a woman approaches and asks if I am heading to Central London and would I like to share a cab. Yes, please!

Automobile (Attempt #2) – Sunday 26 December
Julie, a teacher from Australia, and I make our way to the lengthy taxi queue. We notice that as people get to head of queue, the cabbies approach them and then half the people walk away looking angry. It turns out that there is a 10 pound Boxing Day surcharge on top of the fare and also as there are no trains/tubes, traffic is quite hellish so ride could cost up to 100 pounds. Julie and I bit the bullet and get in. 45 pounds later I am back in my flat, consoling myself with pizza and the Dr Who Christmas episode.

Plane (Attempt #4) – Monday 27 December
I’m gettin’ good at gettin’ to Heathrow. And the news is also good, flight is scheduled and operating. We actually board the plane! And then, I have the LONGEST 15 minutes of my life when the Captain comes on and says “We have a slight delay with our departure as there is a technical issue with one of the wings. The engineers are on their way to look at it.” OMFG. Come on engineers! Captain comes back about 15 mins later and says “Let me put you in the bigger picture…” NOOO, I don’t want the big picture, this sounds bad! However, it’s not! It’s just an update that the engineers have fixed the problem and the crew is just filling out some paperwork and we’ll be on our way. Hurrah! I then, finally, proceed to have a great flight to Baltimore. Shockingly, after all the cancellations, the seat next to me is empty so I can spread out and relax. Our on-flight meal is a surprisingly tasty “Christmas Lunch” of Turkey, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and mince pie, and there is a good selection of movies (and season 1 Glee episodes!) to keep me entertained.

So 10 days after originally planned, I finally arrive in the US and have a wonderful week with family (including my adorable new nephew) and friends!

For those who I missed (some of you for 2 years running now due to snow issues), I hope to see you at some point in 2011 – Happy New Year to all!

March/May/Mom/(Theatre)Madness

Just like baseball fans flocking to Costner’s Field of Dreams, If there’s theatre – mom and I will go. Was just fantastic to have her over in March for my birthday week and in May for my gallbladder recuperation week. In March we caught the very moving and creative “Chronicles of Long Kesh” at my old employer, the Tricycle Theatre. Blending Motown hits with the protests and hunger strikes that took place in Long Kesh (now the Maze) prison in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, this show left mom and I breathless, amazed at how much just six actors and a basically bare set accomplished. Have a peak at their promo film for the show here. Mom also went with my friends Fiona and Nick to see the incredible Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot. And of course we then played ‘Waiting for Sir Ian”, who was lovely and gracious at the stage door, after strutting and fretting his amazing couple hours on the stage and leaving the audience in tears. He told Mom he'd just been to Washington (small world)

Speaking of strutting and fretting, we also went with Stu and Sarah to an ‘interactive’ Henry V at the Southwark Playhouse – a cool venue located under London Bridge station. When we went in, the ushers gave us blue tickets that told us we’d be seated with the ‘French’ and that we had to help them in their cause. While the show was done on a big game board of a stage, it was far less interactive than we thought (we only stood up once as members of the French court), but they do get props for well, imaginative use of props actually..lol and some clever staging.

The biggest props, however, have to go to War Horse, which we saw in May. WOW! Go see this (and bring some Kleenex). Beautiful, stunning, so imaginative! Move over Lion King – the puppetry in this is Incredible. Five minutes in and you think you are looking at real horses. Spielberg is apparently turning it into a movie, and if he uses real horses, well..the man is dead to me! It ranks up there as one of my top 5 all-time theatre moments. I hear it’s heading to Broadway – book those tickets now. Here’s the trailer

Another show for which I had a trailer to share was the all-male production of Pirates of Penzance at Wilton’s Music Hall. This show has been near and dear to my heart since our Herndon High’s production of it back in the 1980s and the greatl film version w/Kevin Kline and Angela Lansbury. Was having dinner w/friends Barry and Rebecca and he mentioned seeing it and how it was so good he’d see it again, so off we all went. What a fun, joyous production in the perfect location at the world’s oldest grand music hall. Here’s a pretty much spot-on review

Speaking of reviews, not sure what the London critics were on when they heaped praises on Enron. I saw it last month and can completely understand why it closed so quickly on Broadway. Self-conscious staging and acting, set pieces too clever for their own good, over-the-top Texas accents – in a word: Annoying! I’ve loved earlier work by the director Rupert Goold, but this was just too, well, much. Phew, and I’ve probably gone on too much here, so will wrap up this post now!

E.T. = the extra talented and talkative Emma Thompson

When I’ve gone to celebrity book signings in the past (Rupert Everett, Bill Clinton, etc) standard procedure is you put the name for the dedication on a post-it and that’s all they sign. ‘To Gretchen- Lots of Love, Bill’ (well, ok, maybe not love, but you know what I mean). Not so for the funny and friendly academy-award winner Emma Thompson! She was signing copies of the new Nanny McPhee book at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (aka the BEST book store EVER! – friendliest, most helpful staff, comfy chairs, great views, but I digress) and sure enough the staff passed out the post-its for names. However, when we got closer in the queue, I could hear her chatting with people, ‘What would you like me to write? Is it a special occasion?’ etc. So when I went up to the table, I told her one of my copies was for Lucy (Stu’s niece) who was having a birthday, so she wrote Happy Birthday, and then I said another was for my nephew Destin, whose birthday wasn’t until November. ‘And how old will Destin be?’ I told her and she wrote “To Destin, who I hear is 6 and Gorgeous!’ (which of course he is – see photos in post below...lol). She then asked if I was on holiday here and I said no that I was now living in London and she said ‘Oh, I do apologise for the weather!’ I then thanked her for taking time to sign my 3 allowed copies and she replied “No, Thank YOU for buying 3 of my books.” I LOVE Emma! More pics of her here

Christmas Catch-up

Mother Nature really messed with my trip home at Xmas last year. I arrived at Dulles wearing a long wool coat (clueless as to the forecast ahead - it was just too big to pack) and the passport control officer looked at me and said ‘You’re well prepared for this weekend.’ Me: ‘Oh, is it going to be cold?’ Him: “Well we’re expecting about 3 feet of snow tomorrow (looking at passport), but I see you’re from Massachusetts, so you’ll be used to it.” It = snowpalooza, snowpocalypse, etc and led to lots of snow cancellations for visits and a 3-hour work out for the Pierce girls to dig out Kait's car! However, was still able to see many of you, including a lovely dinner at David and John’s (the night of the blizzard – many thanks again to Joan and Brent for getting me safely to Kaitlin’s!), a great Freddie Mac reunion lunch (pictured), a sleepover at Tania and Ned’s with the girls, and a final dinner in Shirlington. Then had a wonderful and White Christmas at mom and Peter’s with the whole family, including budding new football (aka soccer) star Destin, sporting his new Arsenal kit, courtesy of Aunt Gretchen, who will buying another kit this year as on March 29 we welcomed Eddie to the family! Big brother Destin clearly relishing his role in the pic here.