Holiday to Hawaii in Aug 2013: Day 2 – London Heathrow to Washington IAD

The flight from LHR was pretty good.  Upper deck was comfy and I had plenty of legroom in 62K, good selection of films and food was pretty decent as well.

Vick and I worked out a strategy for getting down the stairs as quickly as we could so that we would be one of the first off the plane and therefore high up the queue for immigration. We swapped seats for the landing and everything was ready to go. I was proud of Vick the way she man-handled some burly American woman out of the way as she fought through the passengers who were clueless as to what was going on.

Based on the fact that we were over half way down the cabin, we did pretty well being third and fourth down the stairs, and there was a bit of a wait for the sky bridge to be maneuvered into place, but we were quickly off and in to the moving “immigration truck”. We got that right as well keeping close to the doors so as soon as we got off I raced down the stairs along with one or two other passengers who had sussed out what the key objective was at this point in our journey. I was down the stairs first and jumped 4 places, but I looked round and there was Vick stood on the escalator taking in the sights, and my heart sank. She had been doing so well…

As it happens immigration was empty – literally. We were through in 5 mins, and at that point I think we both realized how great it was not having to wait for any baggage. We were straight through customs, and out looking for the Hilton Courtesy bus.

Once at the Hilton, we were upgraded to the Exec floor, after a quick shower, we were back down waiting for the courtesy bus to go back to the airport. That was the most direct way of getting into town. We got straight onto the 5a bus; switched to the metro at Rosslyn, and then off at McPherson’s Square.

It felt really good sitting in our “local” Starbucks on McPherson Square in DC. Great to get back to the US. Immigration at IAD was a breeze, especially pleasing after all the horror stories we heard.  We started to think about the series of events which were all positives and we couldn’t think things could continue in the same vein for too long.

Gill will be pleased to know that we put in an order at Starbucks for 2 Grande mugs – we are getting 3 more Talls. Ready to be picked up on our way back on Sat 7 Sep.

We popped into CVS and picked up some Melatonin and intend on trying this tonight – this should help us sleep and get over the jet lag. It’s not primarily used for heading West, but we will see how we get on with it.

We visited our favorite restaurant in DC – Mai Thai on 19th Street just off Connecticut Ave – started with frozen cocktails and the food was as good as always, and very reasonably priced.

Anyway managed to get back to the hotel via the Metro and bus etc.  Waited an age for the Hilton courtesy bus at the airport which we weren’t happy about but dropped off just after 9pm.

Mrs B here – does anyone want to know where we were in each queue? Thought not. Sorry folks, Nige is obsessed with beating the rest of the world to the front of EVERY queue.  I have to put up with this (apparently it’s in the marriage vows somewhere, or so he tells me) but I don’t see why you should.

For a quick summary of our day – lots of flying, not much queuing (despite horror stories of 3 hours to get thru immigration), first US Starbucks – tick, and lovely to be here again.

Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Hawaii in Aug 2013