Departure days always seem to come with their ups and their downs and this departure day was no different. The phones were canceled, goodbyes were said, and hugs given, all sporaticaly interupted by Chad’s occasional nervous fits of hysteria. We loaded our gear into the Marzena’s (Today she goes by ‘ma-jshay-na’) brother’s van and made our way to Ohare. It must be said the past week could not have gone as smoothly as it has without Marek’s help, from helping us moving out of our apartment to being our driver to tracking down two abandoned luggage carts in the ohare parking lot. Those carts proved our saving grace for the day as our bike boxes complicate our movement to the point of paralysis. By this point, Chad had settled down, thank God, making the airport navigation with the carts a pleasant experience and even standing in line for 45 min, enjoyable. Our turn came for the check-in and with the aid of our crossed fingers, we got Anthony, not either of the two, grumpy looking ladies that everyone else in our line was getting. Turns out Anthony and his partner are experienced bicycle tourers and immediately our preemptive acceptance that we would get charged for our bikes flew out the window. Anthony even gave us an upgrade to the most comfortable airline seats we have ever sat in (except for Chad’s one time first class experience). Thanks Anthony!

So here we are at London Heathrow with a few hours to go before we board our plane to Prague. Jowita bought us both some delicious frozen yogurt with walnuts and blueberries and we are going to take a nap before we board BA860 to Prague. First-Class this flight? We’ll work our blue-eyed charm.

As they say in London, Cheers

Chad and Jowita

Hello from Heathrow