Heathrow, St. Pancras, the London Ice Storm and a miracle by the Saint himself.

This is a Christmas story. As in many of these stories, the protagonists are the snow, the  travelers going home, and the saints of the road.

The voyage started in San Francisco. We were going to Barcelona with 4 and a half year old Rodrigo to see the grandparents. Nothing too adventurous for a kid that has crossed the Atlantic 8 times already. He knows 747’s very well by now. 

We arrived at Heathrow International on Friday Dec 17th after 9 and a half hours crossing. The trouble started with an extra hour of orbiting the airport: weather was turning for the worse in London, and there was gate congestion. We landed around 4 in the afternoon, then had to wait inside the plane on a side runway for an hour to get a gate. As I start picking up the bags from the overhead compartment I get the first of many messages from American Express travel on my iPhone: the flight to Barcelona has been cancelled...

Inside the airport we start to see long queues on the connection desks, flight are being cancelled one after the next...OK, we got to the British Airways connections desk in Terminal 3. We have 15 people ahead of us, and just one attendant from the airline. I look behind us, a line of more than 300 people is queueing...

All flights are cancelled, we get booked on an afternoon flight to Barcelona for the next day, Saturday. We get toiletry kits and a voucher for a hotel. Most hotels around Heathrow are booked, so we get a Holiday Inn at Maidenhead, about 20 miles away...we have short line for a cab, and we are on our way.

As we soon discover, we are very, very lucky. The staff at the Holiday Inn are fantastic. They are not used to this rush of visitors overflowing from Heathrow. But they are champions. Pavel, the manager, and his super competent staff raise to the occasion, they will be fully booked with an international population of stranded souls for 3 days. I get wifi, and read that the best reviews for this particular hotel are for the bar. Paul, the senior bartender, is quick in showing us why. 

Saturday starts with heavy snow, earthy breakfast in the buffet and watching SkyNews, Heathrow is closed for the day. We call American Express and book a flight for Sunday afternoon. Rodrigo builds a snowman in the courtyard of the hotel. No cabs or buses running. By 4pm the snow stops, I linger by the reception, and I am able to negotiate with the first cab that shows up. Phil takes me to Heathrow to see if I can recover our luggage.He leaves me in T5 and orbits, because there is a long queue of people waiting for a cab. I get into T5...it is incredible: this new terminal, shiny and bright just a year ago when it opened, starts to look like a war zone. I manage to get into the luggage-left area, only to learn that our suitcases are in T3 by now. I call Phil and he picks me up for the short to drive to T3. This terminal is by now worse than T5; practically no flight has taken off or landed in the last 24 hours: extremely long lines, people on the floor, lots of Police, TV crews - BA personnel is distressed and unable to cope. After much arguing I am not able to get our suitcases. I have to leave. I get out and Phil takes me back to Maidenhead, 200 british pounds lighter, but in one piece.

Sunday starts with clearer weather, but there are 15 inches of solid snow on the ground, SkyNews shows the drama at Heathrow, only 8 flights will take off today. Ours in not one of them. We call American Express again and get a re-booking for Monday. The weather  forecast is not good, so we also buy tickets for Eurostar to go across the channel to Paris the next day, with a TGV connection to take us further south, to Perpignan. We get a cab to downtown Maidenhead and purchase some clothes and a larger carry-on to fit them in. The folks at the Holiday Inn continue to be incredibly kind to us - and the food is excellent!  We exchange stories with fellow stranded passengers... everyone has a story to tell. The camaraderie and exchange of good wishes makes the wait more bearable.

Monday, I wake up at 6am to learn that our flight for 11am has been cancelled, too... We are OK, I think; our decision to book Eurostar for 12:30 PM seems to be paying off. We say our goodbyes to the hotel staff and get into a cab for St. Pancras station in the heart of London. The M4 is closed 10 miles from London because of a black ice induced accident. We take a detour around Langley and arrive at St. Pancras with 2 hours time.

St. Pancras is another incredible sight. We learn that there are 25 thousand people here. There are lines all around the exterior of the station, it is -3 degrees C. The police is all around the outside helping people cope with the cold, with blankets and tea thermos. We sneak straight inside... more police, lining people up by emergency cordons, there is no free space in this huge station...The loudspeakers start announcing that Eurostar is operating on an emergency basis, and that no more tickets will be sold. Only people with existing tickets should be on line waiting for a train. It takes time for this to sink in for these thousands of stranded travelers. TV is here too interviewing folks. The police tries to keep the whole thing orderly, but it is starting to break apart....

I leave Isabel and Rodrigo under a shop canopy inside the station, and jump transversally all the emergency tape lines to look for a kiosk to print our tickets; we only have reference number from Amex. I start to panic, the reference number does not work...Amex is slow in responding, it seems that they booked through Eurorail, and the code they provided us is not valid with Eurostar... I am terrified by now.

Then, something strange and magical happens. A Eurostar manager helps me by looking into the reference number in his computer. It is not showing up. He talks on my iPhone with Amex, he learns there is a problem with the reference number. He asks me to accompany him to ticketing (which is closed) after 20 minutes, he comes out and explains that there is a problem getting the reference number because it was booked by EuroRail in the US, and they were closed at this time...

This man tells me he is going to get us in the train anyway. He gets me in the closed ticketing station, while thousands of people leave the station through the subway tunnels around us. He prints tickets for us, stamps then and walks me to collect Isabel and Rodrigo from under the shop canopy, which is by coincidence just next to the entrance to Eurostar security check. There is still a huge line of people waiting for “our train”, it has a 3 hour delay by then. The manager walks us to security, takes a moment to reflect, looks at the pandemonium around us, and takes us to the entrance. He says: “Listen, this train goes to EuroDisney, past Paris, but then goes back to the city. I don’t know when your train will depart or if it will at all, why don’t you guys jump in?” I can’t believe his words! I shake his hand effusively and we wish each other a Merry Christmas. We pass security in a hurry, and they hold the gate for the 3 of us, 2 mins. later we are on a train to the Continent. It is a miracle, but I had no idea then of the magnitude of it...

It is Monday December 21st, early afternoon, we are on our way to France. We had been warned that we had no seats assigned, so we had to move as passengers boarded the train at other stations and claimed their seats.  Isabel finds a free seat in First Class and she has Rodrigo on her lap, they get served lunch. I exchange stories with other passengers standing up at the bar. She calls Amex to get the booking reference for our train to Perpignan. We know we are running late and would likely miss our connection (trains are operating at lower speed because of the weather conditions), but we had been told that, as long as we held tickets, we would be able to board another train.

The she learns that Amex never issued the tickets - the transaction had not been completed!!! We never had anything else than an email with an incomplete reference... OH MY GOD!! Now, I start to realize that the Eurostar manager with a yellow tie was not a human being, it was St. Pancras himself. UNBELIEVABLE!

Ok, we are moving so...let’s keep moving. We manage to get our train to Perpignan booked with Eurostar, even though we know we will not make it (a ticket in hand is the only guarantee we can keep moving). We arrive at Gare du Nord 3 hours late. We take the RER metro express to Gare de Lyon at 6pm. Our train is gone, there is another huge line of stranded passengers waiting to change their tickets...St. Pancras shows up again, this time looking like a SNCF manager, who tells Isabel there is a TGV for Montpellier leaving in five minutes, and to jump in. Again... no seats assigned.

OK, we are on our way to the student city. Isabel and I know it well, we attended university there 20 years ago. We arrive Monday at midnight. The station manager recommends a little hotel by the station -- we need to get some sleep. The ticket counter opens at 6:15 AM and there is a train for Barcelona at 7:30 AM. We get a small room and relax for 5 hours.

Tuesday at 6 AM,  I am the first person at the ticket station when it opens; there is a big line behind me by then. I get the tickets and pick the family from the hotel for a quick breakfast of “pains au chocolat” and “cafe au lait” at Paul’s (est. 1840) by the station. We board the train on time, everything is looking better, and we are only a few hours away from our final destination. At the Spanish border, there is a problem with the SNCF engine and we get 1 hour delay. In Portbou, the first station in Spain, the Spanish police boards the train...  apparently they are looking for someone; we are delayed another 30 mins. while they capture the subject of their inquest. I call my Dad in Barcelona, he is going to pick us up at the Barcelona Sants (Saints) station at 1pm...

Finally 5 days after we started our trip we arrived in Barcelona. Our luggage is still in T3, but we are here with family and friends. 

This was an incredible journey.