In case you were wondering

Version 1:

Yesterday was the longest day of my life. You might not know, but I was flying from London-Gatwick to Cincinnati on August 10th, the day they arrested 24 terrorists for plotting to bomb 10 planes going from the UK to the US.

So, here's how it went down. I didn't really get up early enough to watch the news before I went to the airport, but I was grabbing a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant and heard a snippet on the radio about how security was extra tight and travelers weren't being allowed to carry any items on the plane. Then, a guy at the reception desk was telling me the news said it could take 5 hours to get through security. He also said that terrorists had been arrested that day for plotting to bomb planes flying from the UK to the US. So that's about the extent of the information I had. When I arrived at the airport we received little plastic baggies to put our wallets and passports in...nothing else. We weren't allowed to take on any electronics or even books. By the time I finally made it through security (2 checks and one pat-down) the flight status board said my gate was closing. So I ran about 5 minutes to the gate, went through another security check/pat-down and boarded.

Well, it ended up taking about 1-1.5 hours to board the plane. When everyone was finally on Delta and the TSA had to clear our flight manifest. I'm not sure what that entailed but it took another 1 1/2 hours for the TSA to manually clear everyone on the list. If you're keeping track, that's about 3 hours that we sat on the plane before we actually took off. All of that time with nothing to do and nothing but a little bag of nuts and half a glass of water to eat. I remained remarkably calm that whole time and for the most part I was just glad we were actually able to get on the plane and leave the country since on the way to the airport I was figuring I was going to get stuck in the UK. I was also thankful that my family had been asleep most of that time and weren't worrying yet. (I hadn't been able to call since I ran to the plane.)

Then, it was an 8 1/2 hour flight. That's a total of 11 1/2 hours on the plane with no book and no ipod. So I had to watch all the movies. Fortunately one was The Sentinel, which I'd been wanting to see, and there was also a good episode of Alias. When we finally landed in Cincinnati, about 5 hours late we were told we'd have to wait for customs officials to come on board and de-plane row by row. Fortunately after 5 minutes they just let us off the plane.

Two hours later we were through customs. We had to do the typical immigration then waited forever for our bags as they re-screened them when they took them off the plane. It's at this point we heard about the liquids. I also saw a quick clip on CNN while we were waiting to go through the last metal detector and that's when I finally got an idea the extent of the news story. Until then I wasn't sure how big of a story it had been. I missed my chance at fame by walking by all the reporters at the airport when I got back. You can hear some other people describing it here. (I was sitting next to the little old lady on the plane.)

I was finally able to call my mom at about 7 pm when I got my bags back and was able to use my cell phone. That's when I really found out what was going on and that I had flown on the highest security level since 9/11.

Version 2:

My cover is blown. All along you thought I was going to London as a market research consultant. Unfortunately I was seen on BBC 10 arresting the terrorists in London and Birmingham. Let's just keep this between you and me though, I prefer my friends and family alive.