The day started well enough, I had everything, well almost everything, in my suitcase ready to go. We are both pretty used by now to traveling light and we had only filled the suitcases about 3/4 full making sure to leave room for souvenirs etc.

Later in the day I got an email telling me to check online for the flight from London Stansted Airport to Rome Ciampino, no problem, except……………. upon re-reading the terms and conditions I see we are allowed 15kg in one case each. Now I travel light but 15kg!!! That’s 33 pounds, Tim’s shoes weigh more than that!!!

So what would have been a nice relaxing packing day turned into a nightmare of astronomical proportions. No matter how much we took out and bear in mind this means taking suff out, repacking, putting it on the scales. Taking more stuff out, repacking, putting it on the scales, we were over (unless we took 1 pair of socks each and 1 pair of underwear and wore the same clothes for three weeks!)

We finally decided that if we could go for smaller cases we might gain some leway because the case may be lighter. OK, down to the basement, find 2 smaller cases. Repack, we have some weight left, add more, repack, reweigh, we have a bit more weight allowence, if we take this out, add this, repack, reweigh……….

You get the idea. ALL FRIGGING DAY! We did it though. It’s amazing how much shampoo you gave go without, if you get really small bottles you can transfer just enough sun tan lotion, Solarcaine, conditioner etc. We even managed to find 2 tubes of toothpaste that were small samples given to us by the dentist, well it all adds up!

Even our carry on is restricted. The size is 55cm x 40cm x 20cm. 21 in x 15 in x 7 in and cannot weigh more than 10 kg or 22 pounds. When you start adding up the laptop, cables, camera, cables, GPS, cables, books to read, meds, paperwork etc it is amazing how quickly you can reach 20lbs!

And every other line on the web site, their documents and check in papers say in CAPITAL LETTERS that if you are overwieght you will be refused your flight and get no refund and the same if your carry on exceeds the size and weight.

I really thought it would be cheaper to fly to England and then fly to Rome from there, I mean it is cheaper by about $600 but it is waaaay more restrictive. Still it does mean that coming back from the UK we will have some room, the weight retrictions for Delta (to NY and back to SLC) and British Airways (from NY to London and back) is 40lbs weight with one piece of carry on plus one personal item.

Now that means you can get a lot of stuff in carry on. In all my years of travelling I have never had my carry on weighed, we will only have an extra 7lbs each for souveniers in our main luggage but as we won’t have shampoo, suntan lotion and the like to bring back that should help too! Shame we aren’y flying from SLC to the UK on British airways, we would have 70lbs to play with, Ces’t la vie!

Well, one day down, we leave the house tomorrow morning (Tuesday) at 8am to get to the airport and get a 9:50am flight to NY. We then have a 6 hour layover in NY, get the BA flight at 10:30pm and arrive at Heathrow at 10:20am Wednesday morning.

I’ll update the UK portion as soon as we can get an intenet connection, but as we will only be there for two and a half days, don’t hold your breath, Tim’s mum has already said she wants us to weed the front yard, the house needs cleaning, we have to take her shopping and I have to see the eye spoecialist so I doubt I will have time to get over jetlag let alone find time to get on the internet!

Here’s looking forward to the usual airport hurry up and wait regime!!!