Surely you've heard of the whole terrorist plot and smackdown at Heathrow by now. Well the fun part is that Thursday morning UK time, just as the news was breaking in the US, my parents and 4 of their friends were an hour outside of Heathrow airport. I was keeping an eye on the news (it was about 1am here) and was relieved when they finally landed.
Their problem? They had to catch a connection to Rome. So they arrived in the middle of the absolute chaos and, we presume, had to surrender all of their liquids and baggage and carry on only their passports, wallets, and tickets in clear plastic bags. Was their luggage checked all the way through to Rome? Were they able to stash away their carryon stuff or did they just have to take a chance with it as checked baggage on its own? And the most important question--was my dad trying to carry wine onboard???
The three couples--my parents, Michael and Z, and Chuck and Sue, were supposed to spend a few days in Rome (arriving Thursday--haha) before catching a cruise they're taking through the Mediterranean. They were due on the boat today (Saturday) so I'm sure they made it there in time, but I strongly suspect their planned Rome visit was cut a bit short.
We really have no way to contact them aside from a major emergency number, which I did not really feel this was a major emergency. Because if it were a major emergency, they would have called us. In my family we're very much of the "no news is good news" mindset. We can just assume you're okay unless we hear from you--that way we don't have to drive ourselves sick with worry waiting for you to call.
At any rate, Mom's got a yahoo email account so I've sent her an email. She should have internet access (albeit limited and expensive) onboard the boat, so we're thinking she'll check in sometime in the next few days. The other two couples are also from our wine group so when Kevin and I went to the weekly tasting last night, everyone was asking us about them!
Come to think of it, my parents don't always have the best luck when traveling. On 9/11 my mom got stuck in Anchorage. Ah well, as long as everyone's safe, that's the important thing.
Posted by Shelby at August 12, 2006 08:38 PM