BUT, this is where the fun part starts. Three words for you: Heathrow Airport Security. We had a 45 minute layover in Heathrow, so from the beginning, we had little time to spare. It took what felt like forever to get 39 rows of people from in front of us off the plane. Then, we quickly walked to figure out where we were supposed to go to find our gate and our team. Thankfully, God sent us a Kenyan angel. This man was on the same flight as us, and he had done this many times before. So, we asked him if he could help us. I have no idea what we would've done had he not been there because Heathrow is just so very confusing. Anyway, this man got us to the "express connections" lane in security, so we wouldn't miss our flight. We got in the security line, and we were feeling confident. We had 15 minutes before we started boarding and we had no line in security. But, you know how some people say "don't count your eggs before that hatch"? Well, we counted them and that was a bad choice.
We put our stuff on the belt and walked through the metal detector with no problems. We thought we had it made in the shade sipping pink lemonade UNTIL my backpack was put on a separate belt after going through the x-rays. There were two other cartons of people's things in front of mine and I started worrying. The man who was making sure that there were no illegal things in our stuff was probably the oldest and SLOWEST TSA agent I've ever seen. He took EVERY item out of this girl's backpack that she was going to be living out of for what looked like a month. Then, he got what he needed and took the one small bottle of hand sanitizer to this machine to weigh it (and really just waste all the spare time we had.) By this time, we looked on the flight board, and it said our flight was boarding. The panic started to kick in a little more because there was still another carton before we even got to my backpack. I contemplated just grabbing the backpack and sprinting to the gate, but I feel like that wouldn't have gone over well with these security officers. The next lady had seven applesauce packets for her son (that, might I add, fit the requirements that it needed to), but old man TSA wanted to check the weight, width, height, taste, color, smell, gender, ethnicity, and every other possible thing of EACH packet before he returned it back to the woman. While he was doing an investigation on the applesauce, we looked up and saw next to our flight "gate closing." Panic was all over Shelby's face and mine as well. So, we asked the TSA agent in the next line (who is just standing there) to check out my bag. But, apparently that's illegal so we had to wait on Mr. Sloth.
FINALLY it was our turn to get searched...and Mr. Sloth decides he's going to clock out. Surprise, surprise. He told us his replacement would get to us in a little while and then he was gone. I could've thrown a punch at him, but then again I'm pretty sure that's illegal. So, an eternity later (four minutes) a little old Brit comes to check my bag. We told her the predicament (CLEARLY an emergency on our part) we were in and I told her I would just throw away all the liquids I had and we could be done, but shocker, that's against regulations. She then proceeded to take out EVERY SINGLE ITEM from my backpack while giving us a lecture about not taking the liquids out of my bag. Then, she takes my Chapstick and says that it's a liquid! Like no ma'am, it's not! We were just so done and kept telling her out plane's gate was closing, but she refused to let us leave without her putting the liquids AND Chapstick in a sealed bag. After I finally got all of my belongings back, we apologized to her for trying to make her go faster, and I threw everything into one pocket of my backpack. My backpack was half-zipped and barely on my shoulder, but Shelby and I had to do a DEAD SPRINT to get to the gate on time.
We had become those people. The people everyone makes fun of for running through the airport with pajama pants on and a backpack bulging at the seams with every step. We did the "bob-and-weave" and the "excuse me we're trying not to miss our flight" through the corridors and down the escalator. Our hearts were about to beat out of our chest due to the fact neither of us are about that sprinting life, but the panic and adrenaline kept us going to gate A18. We ran up to the desk and threw our passport and boarding passes to the woman and she just smiled and said "thank you for flying British Airways."
And now, after 29 hours of traveling, we're safe and sound on Kenyan soil and far, far away from airport security.
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