Ladies and gentlemen, welcome on board...

This was the layover hotel in Heathrow. The good thing was, you could watch landing planes from the restaurant while having dinner or breakfast. Or could have, if it wouldn't be dark outside... 

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That's our ride, finally boarding!

Made it nicely to the airfield, and walked one looooong terminal to the last gate, we boarded to AA51, American Airlines flight to Dallas. Instantly realized that the delay was basically an upgrade. The B777 is way newer than 747 so each seat has own entertainment system. A wide selection of movies and TV-shows, music and games. 

I watched few episodes of my absolute favourite Sheldon Cooper show.

And a movie Planes. Will have to see this in 3D, the audio on board was really not good, so missed out quite a lot.

They served lunch after departure. The spinach-mushroom lasagna was really tasty, can't complain.

Also plenty of crackers and sodas, coffee or juices.

And they got my undying love by serving chockolate! :D

The unfortunate event was that there was also needed a doctor and the situation almost needed a divert to the closest airfield. Luckily there was a doctor and a nurse on board, so we made it all the way to Dallas. No one complained about the missing second meal they did not serve, since they were unable to prepare it due this medical emergency. And the patient is stabilized. 

When we landed, the paramedics got the lady out and then we got to get out too, directly to the immigration... I think I counted, that my passport was checked 6 times BEFORE entering the plane and 3 times after landing... It seemed to be a jackpot when we got to the immigration hall, there was a really long line, but fortunately it was cleared in 20 minutes. After that, picking up the luggage, one more passport check and out from the arrival hall. We met our ride and searched out few other judges and got to the car. The bad thing was, that we met some heavy traffic so the ride to Sherman took a while longer than expected, but eventually we made it. Had dinner and now I am going to get some sleep. It is 6 am in Finland anyways....