Day 14 going home
We had a 2pm flight today from London Heathrow. John and Lisa's friend Richard drove us to the airport. Before we left we stopped at Alldays to pick up as much English chocolate as we could fit in our bags. I for one don't want to hear the word Cadbury for a long time but I promised the girls in the office that I'd bring some home and I did. 2 of everything. I felt like a Cadbury salesman. The people at Alldays must have thought we were pretty well off our rockers.
As we pulled in to Heathrow we saw a dozen cops with machine guns looking for someone. Godfrey said that yesterday they had arrested a terrorist member of the IRA. This didn't not make me feel very good about checking into Heathrow.
When we got inside we went to the check-in desk to make sure that we had the right reservations this time and we did. Yeah, upper class. During our dance of joy a man asked me to take my bag and go behind a screen so it could be checked by a customs lady. I had a reel of 2" tape and a brief case with several electronic devices in it. I guess it must have looked kind of strange on the X-ray machine. When she opened my bag and saw the candy she said "Don't get sick." I said "Too late." She let me pack my bag and sent me off to meet Godfrey and Alan.
We were escorted to the upper class lounge by a very nice flight attendant and sat down for a bite to eat. They have a lot of great stuff to eat and it's all free. However Alan didn't know this and asked the price of something since there were no prices on the menu. From that point on the girl that was serving us kept asking him if he'd like to borrow a few quid. Alan thought about it for a while...
We then discovered a skiing machine and that was that. We were in the Alps skiing for free. It was one of those virtual reality machines that you have to stand in and move as if you're skiing. We were doing OK until we tried the pro racer setting. At that point we were hitting trees and fences like there was no tomorrow. If this had been real there would have been no tomorrow for any of us.
Now it was time to board our flight. We had 3 spacious seats together and 7-1/2 hours of clear blue skies ahead of us. After a while we had a nice lunch and prepared for the movie. You'll never guess what it was.
Quadrophenia.
Yup that's right Quad, as if we hadn't heard enough of that at MSG for 6 nights. No matter, we watched and it was funny to see Phil Daniels as Jimmy after hanging out with him back stage and at the hotel. When the film was over we all talked about our sessions at John's and the whole thing made us miss him so we pulled out the pictures from the day before and had a few laughs.
We were just served "high tea" which consisted of finger sandwiches, salad, strawberries and a scone with crusted clotted cream spread. MMmmmm sounds appetizing doesn't it. Well you can bet your boots we ate it all and it turned out to be quite nice.
The captain just announced that we will be delayed by about 10 or 15 minutes.
I CAN"T WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS PLANE!!!!!!!!!
Ahhhh New York I can hear the pleasant ring of F*** You A**hole permeating the air. Did I say air? Well you know what mean. It's good to be home. It is almost 6:00pm and customs was a breeze which means we'll be right on time for rush hour. I have an hour drive from Kennedy but it's no problem because I have a tape (JE Band) to listen to in the car and 2 weeks of stories to tell. I can't wait to see my wife and Cody. Then it's off for that Italian dinner.
John is now in London beginning his Quad rehearsals and Godfrey, Alan and I will be doing some gigs around the area just for fun. Godfrey has already told me about a jam at the Sam Ash on Queens Boulevard at 5pm Saturday. You can bet I'll be there with him. ( any chance to play ). We'll keep you posted about other events that we are involved in and we hope to run into some of you along the way. I thank you all for joining us on this trip and I'll drop in on you from time to time.
Thanks again and we'll see you soon.
All My Best Wishes,
Steve Luongo
P.S. a very special thanks to Alan McKendree for all his help. Thanks Alan from the John Entwistle Band