I made it to the Madison airport plenty early, since I was afraid of getting left behind. The man who gave me my boarding passes and took my checked bag was extremely helpful. He went through and explained who I'm supposed to ask if I have questions and what happens when I get to O'Hare and Heathrow. I felt a little better after listening to him. I got through security and they didn't even have to pat me down or anything, so I was all set. I chatted with one of the security people in the hallway about her son, who's three, if I remember correctly. She showed me a picture and he's adorable. Then, I just went to my gate and waited for about an hour and a half until my plane showed up.
The first plane was the little one - three seats across, one on one side, two on the other. I got placed on the side with just one seat, so that was good. I wasn't expecting all the sounds to be so loud, so I was jumpy and the flight attendant kept asking me if I was okay. She seemed nervous, like maybe I was jittery because I was going to do something stupid or whatever. I don't know, but she didn't help much at all. Luckily, it was only a 26 minute flight. I worked on a hard KenKen puzzle so I wouldn't get overwhelmed, and that worked quite well.
When I got to O'Hare, I'm pretty sure I looked like a small child seeing the Easter Bunny for the first time. Not with the excited part though. Everything is so big and bright and there's so many people you can't even take a step without running into four of them. I got in at gate G, and my flight left from gate K, which I was told is about a 40 minute walk. Whoever may have mentioned that (ah hem...) was terribly wrong, by the way. It only took about 15 minutes to get to my gate. Of course, I had a few hours to kill, so I wandered around for a while. I found the food court, and got food, since I've heard the plane food is not great and not enough to satisfy (also wrong, whoever said that). There are outlets along the wall in O'Hare, but I didn't need to charge anything, so I found one that didn't work so people would leave me alone, and sat down with my puzzles.
People usually walked away when I told them the outlet didn't work, but one guy decided to sit down and try it anyway. I didn't say I told you so when it didn't work because I just wanted him to go away. Except he didn't, and started telling me about where he's going (South Dakota) and why (an uncle who's sick and needs help with his computer repair shop). Then he gives me a headphone and tells me to listen, but the music is loud enough I can hear it without putting it in my ear. It's not bad - a sort of mix between Nintendo music and Green Day. Apparently, he made it and sells it online. He handed me a business card after about two hours of telling me all about himself. I think I nodded once the entire time. People are odd.
I got on the plane to Heathrow just fine, and I was in the back in the aisle, so I didn't freak out at all. My seat partner is a seasoned traveler, so she talked about what would happen when we got to Heathrow and I felt a lot better. She was headed to South Africa for an internship in a social work position. She slept most of the way, and I tried, but that just was not going to happen. The flight was mostly uneventful, except the babies up front deciding in the middle of the flight to throw up on the people sitting next to their caretakers and then cry the rest of the way.
Heathrow is even more overwhelming than O'Hare. I had to go through customs, which I guess I wasn't expecting, since I wasn't leaving the airport, but I did. Apparently, the rules are different through UK customs than for American Airline rules. So, my scissors I had with me was too long for the UK, even though it had an inch to spare for AA rules. So, they got confiscated. :( They tried to take my mosquito net too because it has structural poles in it, and they didn't understand why I had tubular objects in my bag. I had to empty both of my bags completely, then repack them after the agents cleared everything besides the scissors. That was frustrating.
Heathrow is so big, you have to take train cars/buses to get from terminal to terminal. It was a 20 minute bus ride from the terminal I landed in to the one I had to leave from. Then, I had a trolley-thing ride from the main area of that terminal to get to my gate. It was confusing and busy and I really do not like Heathrow. But I only had to be there for about 2 hours, luckily. My plane got off without a hitch, but I was not as lucky with my seat partner this time.
He was a drunk, 30-year-old Ghanaian native who hadn't been home in ten years because he was going to college somewhere in Colorado. And, apparently, the slightly rainbow-looking bracelet I made on the last flight offended him greatly. As he put it, "The girls are fine; that's sexy, but the guys - that's just disgusting. It's wrong." (My bracelet, by the way, was red, yellow, green, and blue). I tried very very hard to keep my mouth shut because I did not want to get into a verbal argument on a plane with someone I'd be spending the next 6 hours dealing with. Luckily, the first drink he ordered on the plane made him pass out for the rest of the flight. :) This flight was a little harder, mostly because he made me angry right off the bat. But, again, I made it through and landed safely in Accra.
Customs in Accra consisted of handing in my disembarkation form and getting fingerprinted, then having my bags 'searched'. They only searched about a quarter of the people's bags who came through, and I wasn't one of them. I just walked out into the pick up area and waited. An officer saw me waiting and offered to let me call someone to see if they were coming to pick me up, so I did. After I got confirmation from William that Aankit was indeed on his way, the officer asked me for a tip. I declined, figuring he'd offered, I didn't ask. That's very common in Ghana - people being nice just to get money. Aankit showed up soon after, and we left the airport. I was in Ghana.
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