So I’m back in London. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I’m back. Let me preface this by saying that I’m pretty lucky to have made it out of town at all. My flight was scheduled for Saturday around 8pm. Everyone had been predicting snow, rain and ice from Friday night onward. But Saturday dawned overcast, but still none of the bad stuff. I spent the day doing all sorts of errands just getting ready for the trip. Carolyn came by to drive me to the airport and still nothing. But, the second we got into the car, down came the ice. And it kept getting progressively worse.

I arrived to the airport, said goodbye to Carolyn (sniffle) and found that my flight was still on time. I met up with my boss, Andrew, and we went to the terminal. The plane boarded nicely and on time. But outside, the wind was swirling and ice was sticking to the plane. And then, miracles of miracles, the de-icers showed up. I don’t know if you have seen a de-icing vehicle but it’s basically a cherry picker with a hose in the basket (which is often covered) that spews some freaky colored chemicals. One of the de-icers didn’t have cover for the poor guy in the cherry picker. He looked really miserable.

They needed to do three passes over the plane to get it nice and clear of the ice. And then we got to experience what it’s like for a Boeing 777 to back out of a space onto runways covered with snow and ice. And then taking off on an icy runway. But we got into the air without a problem. That pilot has to have nerves of steel for that takeoff.

I figured the rest of the flight would be smooth but then came dinner. As soon as everyone had their food and drinks the plane hit some nasty ass turbulence. It was bad enough that the pilot called out to the flight attendants to get themselves to a seat  immediately and we all sat gasping for about ten minutes whilst trying not to get all our food and drink spilled on us as the plane bumped and dropped and shuddered.

Anyway, with all that fun, we managed to only be an hour late, which seems to be kind of normal for the long haul flights, even with good weather. The news is mentioned many flights at O’hare being canceled, but I get the impression that the international flights don’t get canceled unless the airport is closed outright.

Now I’m in London in a swanky place. I’ll post pictures later. I’m good and jetlagged but need to make it through dinner before passing out. I’ll also post pics from my going away party, too!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 11:09 am and is filed under Chicago, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.