Flying over this lucious hills, ice topped mountains, and grassy plains of Ireland, I could see our destination in the distance. The moon still shining bright sang a soft lullaby to all the tired travellers, slowly putting everyone back to sleep. My anxiousness restrained my body from ever sleeping on this plane ride. As I was peeking out my small airplane window my vision was limited due to a seven hour plane ride, but looking out I realized that we weren’t in small town Pewaukee anymore. We were now descending down to our new home for the next few weeks when the plane hit a massive turbulent cloud. I thought it was a big scare because I am not a airplane person, but everyone around us wasn’t phased; probably because everyone was sleeping. But, this wasn’t going to be the only bump we were going to hit today for sure.

The plane has landed in London, and the adrenaline has officially hit me. I was so excited to be in Europe for the first time! As the hustle and bustle of everyone grabbing their belongings from the overhead compartments began, all I wanted to do was get out into the city of my dreams. Walking out of the plane I took a deep breath of the new air that I have been waiting for. This was the summer that was going to be the hottest for all of Europe in fifty years. I couldn’t wait to feel the London sun hit my body and make it golden tan.

Walking out of our terminal, we followed the busy line of people to collect our luggage. Passing all these new sights made me even more anxious to start taking on the city. As we got to the luggage carrier I realized that my family has never had problems in the airport with anything, so without even worrying about it I knew that we would be out in the city in at least an hour. I just couldn’t stand still knowing that London was waiting for us.

A few minutes had passed that felt like nothing. My mom and dad started to wonder where our luggage was since that was the one thing we were waiting for. I wasn’t really paying any attention to how long we were sitting in the luggage carrier because there was so many new things going on around me that my eyes couldn’t help but stare off into space.

It was now about 8:00 in the morning (London time), and still the entire plane was waiting for our luggage to show up. Chaos started to occur with all of the different languages filling the air. People didn’t know where their belongings were, and wanted them now. Questions started to shoot at the one attendant assigned to our terminal who was just trying to keep the peace between the anger and frustration of everyone. For a lot of these people, connection flights were being missed, and lonely family members ready to welcome their member home started to vanish. The people on our flight were now the only living soles in this massive airport. At least that’s what it felt like. My family started to get worried now because we packed two weeks worth of clothes in all of those suitcases. Were we about to spend two weeks in Europe with one pair of clothes?  I was starting to think that our record of no problems in the airport was about to end.

We had been waiting for about a hour  when the attendant standing by delivered the bad news to us. Our luggage had been lost in the shuffle of taking it off of our plane. He told us that it wasn’t gone, but it was just lost. Well, he had just stirred the pot for some very impatient people. They were like a stampede of hungry lions ready to pounce. I have never seen my Mom so worried in my life. She had just dragged a family of five across the world, and now we are sitting with one pair of clothes, barely enough euros to feed anyone, and kids with attitudes that weren’t helping the situation. Personally perplexed by the situation we were in, there was no good way to act except for trying to stay positive.

About another hour slowly ticked past, and there were no updates on where our luggage was. Since we would be waiting for a while, my brother and I decided to run around on the flat escalators until we ran too much our heads were spinning. These fun and silly moments were the things that I will get out of this “tragic” experience. Walking back to where the rest of our family was, a small movement of the carrier caught my eye. It started to inch ever so slightly, but more than before. Our brisk walk back to our family transitioned to a sprint with me dragging my resisting 10 year old brother behind me. He caught on to what I was running towards, and stopped resisting. It was like we were running into the light of glory. . . our savior. We had been waiting around for three hours, so to finally see our luggage being spit out onto the carrier was such a good sight. All the lions started to pounce to collect their luggage. After they grabbed it they sprinted away like when they catch their prey; nowhere to be seen. My family had packed up four suitcases. I was just hoping to myself that they were all there, so we could get out of this airport at last. All four finally turned the corner to come to us. I was elated at the sight.

Finally we were ready to get out of this airport, and start doing what we actually came to London for, which was explore around the city! Going through customs was a breeze thank God. I don’t think I could wait any longer to get out of this airport. Before I knew it I was walking out of the doors. WHOOSH. A fresh breath of  new London air filled my lungs. None of it contained airport smells; we were free!

As we got into the old fashioned cab I thought to myself, if there was one thing I got out of this experience; it would that you need to stay positive and calm in tough situations. I realized that it is important to always look at the bright side of things. I mean we were sitting in London Heathrow Airport. Seriously, when is the next time I will be doing that on a Tuesday morning? Vroom. We were off into the city of my dreams.