Europe Trip: Getting Home

My last morning waking up on the ship was a Friday.  

This was my view from the balcony as I prepared to disembark in Southampton.  

Getting off the ship was a bit of a zoo.  That was the most "crowded" I felt on the cruise.  Every single person was trying to get out 2 doors at the same time, so that was not especially fun or efficient.  

Once I got off, I was left with a bit of a "now what?" feeling.  After being shuttled about, herded here and there, for most of the last week, I was on my own.  I had hours before I needed to be at the airport... but I also had all my luggage with me.  :sigh:  If I hadn't had baggage, I might have tried to see the Titanic museum, but without anywhere to store my stuff, off to the airport it was.  I grabbed a taxi.  

After checking in at the airport, I had several hours to kill before my 5:20 flight.  I did have a book on my iPad.  I tried to get up once an hour (when my Fitbit reminded me) and walk.  It rained during one or two of these walks, but the walkway was covered.  

Southampton airport is over 100 years old, and is pretty tiny.  I'd later find out that it has 9 gates, except 7 and 8 share a door, so is that really 9 gates?  Not really.  

If you look that way, there's a train station at the end of the walkway, across a street.  

And if you look that way, you occasionally see a plane take off.

It's the sort of airport where you have to walk outside and climb stairs to get on your plane.  

Bye bye, England!  Hope to see you again someday!  

Hello Netherlands!  Why is there a plane in the airport?  Amsterdam is a much bigger airport than Southampton!  

Fortunately, many people spoke English, and I was able to get directions to my attached-to-the-airport hotel.  It was a long walk.  

After all the talk about cruising ducks on the cruise Facebook page, I was amused to find ducks in the lobby.  

The guy at the desk asked what time my flight was.  "9 a.m."  He then said, "Be sure to get over there 3.5 hours beforehand."  Yikes.  "Sometimes people don't believe me and they come back later needing their room for another night because they missed their flight."  All righty then.  3.5 hours it is.  

The hotel room

Looks like a good place to spend a 14 hour layover, does it not?

With it's atrium facing window, overlooking the check in desk and bar.  

I basically slept (I forgot dinner that night), showered, and headed back toward security.  My flight was 9:50 a.m. and I left the hotel desk at 6.  Seems the airport was having a good day.  I was through security at ~7:30, and found myself some breakfast.  

I got a chuckle out of the clogs in an airport gift shop.  "Tell me you're in Holland without telling me you're in Holland."  

 As in the airport, I tried to get up every couple of hours on the long flight to Los Angeles to stretch and move around.  This picture was taken from the window of the void space where people wait their turn for the tiny restrooms.  In Los Angeles, I had another layover, but there's lots and lots of room to walk there.  I walked some, read some, and I may have even dozed a little, since it had been hours and hours since Amsterdam.  

I was very happy to finally land in Sacramento and roll myself and my suitcase out to passenger pickup.  The sight of Matilda pulling up cheered me immensely.  Travel is amazing, and I absolutely want to take another trip next summer, but coming home is good, too.