London->Nairobi->Kilimanjaro July 4, 2007

I was finally able to sleep a little on the flight to Nairobi. The food was so good! I watched a bunch of shows and movies, and Blades of Glory, and How I Met Your Mother weren’t too bad! In short, I pretty much stuffed myself and took many catnaps when I was on this flight. I was still tired at the end of the flight though.

The stuff I saw out of the window, Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru were just breathtaking. It was so amazing to see these tall mountains rise above the clouds!

I got off the plane, paid $50 for the visa. My host family picked me up from the airport and off we go!

This has to be one of the worst days ever! July 3, 2007

I am catching up on some blogging, about all the annoying things that happened today.

When I landed, I got my luggage from the “Baggage Reclaim” (I guess that’s what the British like to call it!), and proceeded to Virgin Atlantic to check in my bags for the next flight to Nairobi.

The lady who was checking the bags in line said that Heathrow now has this strict policy of allowing only ONE carry on at 6kg. That’s different from the U.S. flights, where we are allowed 1 bag, and 1 personal item. So I went to the corner to repack and just kept my laptop bag.

I went back in line, and waited some more, to get scolded by the Virgin Atlantic lady that I should know better than to bring two luggages with me, because the flight to Nairobi would limit me to 23kg, and only 1 checked luggage. My other luggage weighed in at ~15kg, and Virgin Atlantic policy charges 27.10 GBP (50 dollars a kg) for the bag, and they would kindly charge me for 12kg only. There was no way I would pay for that. They suggested that I go check with the company called Excess Baggage, and have them carry it to Kilimanjaro.

So I did, and they told me it would be 180 GBP to send it to Kilimanjaro, and it would arrive between 7-10 business days. Argh. That’s not an option either.

So I emailed some PSC folks to get some help, and in the mean time, I went to “left luggage” to store my luggage for the day for 6 GBP, and knowing that I will take that 23kg bag, I went back to Virgin Atlantic to check the bag in.

This time around, they told me that the first lady was wrong, and I am actually allowed 30kgs total for two bags! I was relieved, and thought it was a good compromise, so I ditched some stuff, and got my bags down to about 30kg and went back. Since I am not allowed to leave stuff around the airport, I had to take the unwanted stuff (which were gifts to these wheelchair workshops) to the British Airport Authority and let them get rid of it. Luckily, some cleaning ladies/guys wanted the leather gloves, and was glad to take them and put them to good use!

I finally went back to Virgin Atlantic for the last time to check in my 30kg total of luggage, and told my story to another group of staff checking me in. They said “you are actually allowed to have two checked luggages with 23kg each, since your trip started in Boston, and you should be able to carry out the luggage allowance through your whole trip!”

So, in the end, I had ditched out some stuff, and was only able to take 75% of my original luggage when I was actually allowed 2 bags with 23kgs each.

Man.. so because of these weird regulations and miscommunications, it turns out I could’ve taken everything with me. I should’ve known better about all this mess and anticipated all this! Big lesson learned, is to never carry more than 1 bag of 23kg as checked luggage if you are flying on different airlines on your trip!

I was worried about having to pick up my luggage in Nairobi, but one good thing came out of this. When I finally got my bags checked in, the lady said that Virgin Atlantic can get the bags all the way to Kilimanjaro.

Well it’s around 10am, and my next flight isn’t boarding til 6pm, it’s time to go see London!

On the plane to London… July 3, 2007

Flying to London from Boston is a fairly short flight. I didn’t really get to sleep though. Argh. I saw the crack of dawn when I flew over the Atlantic! Too bad it’s all cloudy, I couldn’t really see anything.

After the 6am curfew was over, the plane was finally allowed to land! The plane was actually early and arrive over London at 5:25… I am excited to go see London!

How can I burn 3 hours of time at Logan Airport? and what’s happening already? July 2, 2007

$28 – cab fare from Allston to Logan Airport
$3.16 – tall coffee frapp from Starbucks
Spending money while not having regular job income always worries me.

I got to the airport 3.5 hours before my 7pm departure, so I am just sitting around trying to burn some time. I have decided to be a cheap ass and not pay for a $7 day pass to get on Logan Wifi. So I am just blogging on MS Word.

Tonight, I will be flying to London Heathrow airport on American Airlines. I have never been on American Airlines before, I’ll see what their international service is like. Then I’ll have a 12-hour layover in London, and at 7pm again, I’ll be flying Virgin Atlantic to Nairobi. From Nairobi, I’ll be flying to Kilimanjaro on Kenya Airlines (flight operated by Precision Air).

Upon check in, the lady told me that I would need to recheck my bags in Nairobi, since American Airlines does not have a partnership with Kenya Airlines. Since my connection in Nairobi is only 2 hours long, she told me that I should recheck my bags in London to see if Virgin Atlantic has a partnership with Kenya Airlines. Supposedly this partnership allows these airlines to make sure my bags can travel with me across airlines. If they don’t have a partnership, I would have to pick up my bags, and recheck them in Nairobi, I may miss my connection flight to Kilimanjaro. I just got off the phone with Virgin Atlantic, and they weren’t able to answer my question. I guess I should just stop worrying.

Both my checked bags are little over 40 lbs each. I think that my flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro is on a small jet, and the luggage may be overweight. After 30 minutes of research at home, trying to figure out what I should expect to happen at the airport, I still don’t know what would happen. Other people have either had no surcharge, to $20 dollar fee, or up to $300 of fees for the overweight luggage. I guess I’ll just have to find that out later.