The One Where I Fly Back to the US Sitting Next to Santa Claus

While checking my bags at Heathrow, the lady at the check-in counter tells me that my carry-on bags are 11 kg each and they need to be 6 kg each! Mind you, all the American students I was with had already left for security and the gate, so I was the last one there. Freaking out, I had no idea what to do to avoid having to pay extra. I had to check my small tan suitcase in as a 3rd piece of luggage and pay 90 pounds ($135!) I had to charge it to my parent's credit card. (Sorry Mom!)

On the way to the gate, I stopped at a WHSmith to use up my last 5 pounds. The queue was so long it wrapped around like 3 times! I was hoping I could still make it to the gate in time and there were two annoying 12-year-old Muslim girls in front of me. There were "crisps" in roast chicken flavor that they were looking at. They were joking about them not being "Halal" I wanted to smack them.

I get on the plane in time and everything... but then as I approach my seat, I encounter the cherry to my nightmare of an ice cream sundae. I had a middle aisle seat next to a man who took up 1 1/2 seats!!! He was so obese! It didn't help that he had a red T-shirt on and a grey beard and grey hair. I could have sworn he had an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. The man wouldn't stop hacking and coughing in the dead of silence the whole time! It didn't help that at one point I needed to go to the bathroom and he had to let me out of the seat. SO AWKWARD!