Return Trip
We had slightly hoped that the return trip from Seattle would proceed as planned. And it did. More or less. We did not miss any plane, and we arrived in Brussels with all of our bags. But. The check-in counters of BA in Seattle were rather undermanned. The line was long, and the time was running short. Finally BA decided to allow economy class travellers at their first and business class counters (though they call it slightly different IIRC). With less than an hour to reach the gate, the check-in line began moving faster. No windows seats left (obviously), and we were at the very rear of the plane, on what they claimed were pre-assigned seats. Ah well. We moved on to the security line, with abut 35 to 40 minutes before the deadline the check-in lady gave us to reach the gate. I wonder how the line behind us could possibly make that deadline. Lucky for us the security check went speedily. Some people were confused about the no-belts, no-shoes demand, but we passed through ok. No re-checks.
When we made it to the gate, having just missed the train - causing an extra 4 minute delay - we were asked if we'd passed the immigration machines. Nope. Seems weird, checking out of the US is obligatory, and we thought we were doing fine because they had removed the immigration paper from the passport when checking in, but apparently there is nobody forcing you to pass the US-visit machines to have your prints taken once more. When they announced it at the gate prior to boarding, a lot of people were getting up and moving out fast to the said machine.
The flight itself was uneventful, I watched MI-III, which was good, brainless entertainment. Nothing spectacular and certainly not as good as I and II. The ride was bumpy at times, but no booze was spilled. The dude serving us was not very friendly, and the chick in front of me got angry when I stowed away my powerbook and (reading) book in the seat, bumping into her back. I managed to sleep through most of the night. We landed half an hour late. This gave us max. 1.5 hours to reach the next gate. Great. Heathrow made our plane wait for another half hour on the runway, which was even greater. Add to that the fact that we needed to stay in Terminal 4, passing the same security line we passed on our outbound trip, and you can see that there was a good reason for an increase in stress. Additionally, we had seats on row 51. The back of the plane. With 55 minutes to reach the gate, people began to move at the business class. Luckily, some people stayed seated, so we could moved on faster than expected. We also did manage to walk by most of the passengers of our plane on the way to the security check. So, we finally made it with 15 minutes to spare to the gate. Sigh.
In Brussels, both bags turned up on the carroussel, so we went on our happy way, trying out the Belgian railways. Luckily, we managed ok. No delays.
