Arriving San Francisco

The hours pass, eventually we are landing. We must now face American customs and home land security.

It wasn’t as bad as I had heard.

We passed through having to give our finger prints – all 5 of them and what I think was a retinal eye scan. Then we had to pick up our luggage from baggage claim and then re-check it on our connecting United Airlines flight 10 to New York City. Low and behold they had lost our pram and baby car seat. I wasn’t surprised and I certainly wasn’t angry about it.

The man who was working in baggage claim was very helpful. After a bit of waiting around we left him with it as we had a connecting flight to catch and time was getting on. He told us to fill in a form when we got to JFK Airport in New York City about the missing luggage.

So on we went to San Francisco Domestic Terminal which was only a short walk away. We went through security (of course) and they kindly let us go to the front of the line, another kindness on account of us travelling with 5 children. This easily saved us 45 minutes. However, they did feel it necessary to encapsulate Vincent into a glass case, where he resembled a store mannequin with an anxious frown. After being vigorously frisked by a gloved man he was released back into the populace - we left in a hurry!

The third flight was definitely the worst. It was 5 hours long, plus the hour we spent sitting on the tarmac before take-off. We were all very hungry and the food was TERRIBLE plus you had to pay exorbitant prices for it, that on top of all ready being tired just made the flight take forever. However my spirits were lifted when a kind male stewardess from first class gave Helena a large, warm, baked cookie and a glass of milk which was left over from first class. She ate it hungrily and I was very grateful to him as he didn’t have to and I'm pretty sure he’s not suppose to do that.