Oh dear – the morning after the night before was bad enough when I was younger but at my now increased levels of maturity it was not good at all. I have enough problems with my body without adding unnecessary self-inflicted ones. Worse than that I had to now somehow get us through the airport and onto the plane before I could hopefully sleep it off.
I am normally quite good at realising when I have had enough to drink but the problem was that my glass was constantly being topped up by the very attentive and I really have no idea how many I had.
There were a few glasses of champagne at the drinks outside the Tower and then possibly a couple of Aperol Spritz on the Wharf. I had glasses of white with one course and then glasses of red with another. There were more bubbles with the toasts and then a double G&T for whatever reason I cannot recall. It was only then when I got up from the table I realised, I needed to switch to water but it was too late. It had been a great night though.
Karen said I looked very pale, and I would have described myself as fragile and delicate as Sunny picked us up at 8.30am outside the Hotel as arranged. I know I was quite quiet on the short journey. We checked in next to the Jamaica Football team who had been playing in some tournament over here who seemed to have been given my energy.
After a lovely chat with the lady at check in, somehow, we got directed to the Fastrack Security queue and were through very quickly without any holdups.
There was a short queue to get into the Amex Centurion Lounge which was quite full. The food and drink were very acceptable. I drank copious amounts of tea, coke zero and water which with a fry up breakfast perked me up enough again to get me to the plane.
Boarding was early and we were soon settled into our Premium Economy seats. I got comfortable and dozed for about an hour and don’t really remember taking off.
The service from the crew was frequent and excellent. I avoided all alcohol and drank loads of other fluids. Eventually after our pre ordered meal of fish and chips I started to feel normal again, whatever normal for me and Norfolk is.
I watched the Bob Dylan film ‘A Complete Unknown’ which I really enjoyed.
The flight seemed to drag on though. I started to watch ‘Fleabag’ prompted by one of the readings from the wedding as I had missed it when it was originally shown. I really enjoyed it and will find it on iPlayer to finish it off soon.
Despite leaving on time, we arrived late. I could see both the Washington Memorial and the White House in the distance as we circled round before landing. Then the fun began.
Washington Dulles airport is an old airport It is very tired and is quite frankly a dump.
We followed the signs to US Customs and ended up in a holding area where we had to wait to board this bizarre people mover – an elevated bus like vehicle to move you from the terminal to the custom area. Apparently, they have been using this system for some terminals since the 1960’s and expect to continue doing so for another 20 years. We were rammed in with 100 other people. The bus moved us up and down before driving what seemed like a mile or so. Very weird.
Global Security meant we bypassed a very long immigration queue although we did briefly have to have our fingerprints checked again by a very talkative officer.
We found our baggage carousel and grabbed Karen’s bag which was amazingly already going round. There was then a wait for more to come off. When more started appearing the carousel just stopped as did the next one along.
We waited and waited and nothing moved. Eventually lots of shouting service staff appeared started removing all bags from the carousel. People were then getting annoyed as some could see their bags on the chute in the middle but couldn’t access them. It seemed like the situation could escalate out of control quick quickly. In the meantime, I checked, and he air tag in my bag was still showing as being in Heathrow which didn’t fill me with any confidence
After 20 minutes a loud cheer went up as the carousels started up again and fortunately within a few minutes my bag appeared. We quickly as Karen’s little legs would allow, followed the signs to car rental. Being such a crap airport though, it involved a shuttle bus ride for 15 minutes. Getting Karen a bus like this is never easy alone with her bags.
We were booked with Avis rental and I could see my name on the illuminated Preferred Sign as we pulled in and got off at the Preferred Customer building. In less than a minute we had the keys and headed to load up a very used, battered, bruised and not especially clean Hyundai Tucson.
We set it all up and followed the exit signs which took us passed the Avis non preferred building which was chaos. People had abandoned their cars just blocked the way past. I tried to squeeze round the back of the building to Karen’s horror as it was tight but that was also blocked and had to do an even more precarious reversal manoeuvre.
Fortunately, by now some of the shuttle buses were also being blocked and they were all on their horns trying to get people to move and eventually they did. I could not wait to leave this flipping airport and vicinity.
The drive to our hotel in Gettysburg was 72 miles most of which was on single carriageway which is strange for the US.
The countryside was green and lush, and it almost had a UK feel about it. The buildings were mostly farm related and it was all very rural. We liked it. There were already many signs to various battlefields. We also noted that many of the place names ended in ‘burg’ relating to the German for fortress.
The Holiday inn Express for the next couple of nights in Gettysburg was opposite the turning for the National Park Visitors Centre and next to the Outlets which was a double Brucie bonus. The receptionist was extremely helpful, and we were soon in our room. Not for long though as Karen was hungry. I tried to get Pizza delivered but failed so I ordered a Domino’s collection as it was just 8 minutes away.
Karen was not enamoured with her Pizza saying it was ‘different’ to home. Mine was fine. We got ourselves organised and Karen was snoring away in bed by 9.30pm. I joined her in the Land of Nod by 10pm.
