European Vacation Part One: Getting There
Ya know, a vacation is a funny thing. You go because, well, you need a break. All work and no play, blah blah blah. But then you come back, and you're tired as hell, and you have work piled up into a menacing heap. Within a day and a half, you need another vacation. And another. And soon you descend into the spiral of Vacation Addiction.
OK, I'll admit it. I'm a Vacation Addict. And I'm not in the least bit upset about it. But then again, I haven't gotten my credit card bill yet...
OK, so between vacations and out-of-town guests and catching up on an insane workload, I haven't had the chance to regale you all with my latest tales of adventure until now. But here I am, back on West Coast time and wishing I were lounging carefree in an Amsterdam coffeeshop but alas, I must morph back into the white-collar slave to the dollar that this particular human epoch has assured I will be for awhile.
But for a moment, just a few short weeks ago, I was soaring high into the friendly skies in a United Airlines seat that was only slightly bigger than a baby's carseat, not a care in the world other than poor circulation, muscle cramps and the strange smells that appear out of nowhere in the recycled air of a pressurized cabin.
The flight took ninety-seven hours, or so it seemed. I brought drugs to knock me out but they didn't work. Yeah, I knew the expiration date was sometime in the mid-nineties, but I figured they'd do SOMETHING (greedy pharmaceutical companies with their planned obsolescence). Bastards. So I read 2 books, watched some horrid inflight movies (that godawful sequel to 'Bridget Jones' made the first one, which I also saw on a plane, seem like 'Citizen Kane' by comparison), squirmed around, and tried in futility to sleep. No dice. The ever-present constantly screaming baby made my earplugs useless. Why don't they have special flights for people with babies, huh? And while they're at it, they should have special rows for fat people too, with just one big seat and no armrests. Fit 'em in there according to ass size, like in a church pew, as many across as needed for ballast.
So anyway, what's REALLY nice on international flights now is that they have those little video maps and timetables you can check periodically, so that you can see that five minutes has passed since the last time you checked it. It's like your inner child going 'are we there yet?' in your head every few minutes. Maddening. And they encourage this.
OK, so after weeks in the air, landed at Heathrow Airport in London for a three-hour layover. Yeah, that was all I could get. Three hours (or so I thought) to wait for a one-hour flight across the channel. Not only that, but Heathrow, like many airports all over the world, is run by complete idiots. Yes, even though airplanes come and go day in and day out from all over the planet, it seems that when the employees of Heathrow go to bed at night, they forget all about just exactly what it is that they do, and they have to start over each morning.
There were signs pointing in opposing directions, saying the same thing. There were crowds of arriving passengers completely confused as to where to go next, and no one to tell them. I could swear that nobody worked there at all. The atmosphere was one of complete chaos. A recording kept playing over the intercom, apologizing in a female voice for the confusion, but not explaining why. But there were no flesh-and-blood humans to be found, other than travelers trying desperately to figure out why the single line they were forced to stand in that snaked through the entire airport was not moving at all. Several people in line with me missed their connecting flights while standing there; it was then that I became grateful for my 3-hour layover. Turns out they were short-handed, with one security checkpoint for ALL arriving flights, and nobody to tell anyone the situation. Lovely. Three hours later, I barely made it onto my connecting flight to Paris.
To be continued...
* * *
OK, I'll admit it. I'm a Vacation Addict. And I'm not in the least bit upset about it. But then again, I haven't gotten my credit card bill yet...
OK, so between vacations and out-of-town guests and catching up on an insane workload, I haven't had the chance to regale you all with my latest tales of adventure until now. But here I am, back on West Coast time and wishing I were lounging carefree in an Amsterdam coffeeshop but alas, I must morph back into the white-collar slave to the dollar that this particular human epoch has assured I will be for awhile.
But for a moment, just a few short weeks ago, I was soaring high into the friendly skies in a United Airlines seat that was only slightly bigger than a baby's carseat, not a care in the world other than poor circulation, muscle cramps and the strange smells that appear out of nowhere in the recycled air of a pressurized cabin.
The flight took ninety-seven hours, or so it seemed. I brought drugs to knock me out but they didn't work. Yeah, I knew the expiration date was sometime in the mid-nineties, but I figured they'd do SOMETHING (greedy pharmaceutical companies with their planned obsolescence). Bastards. So I read 2 books, watched some horrid inflight movies (that godawful sequel to 'Bridget Jones' made the first one, which I also saw on a plane, seem like 'Citizen Kane' by comparison), squirmed around, and tried in futility to sleep. No dice. The ever-present constantly screaming baby made my earplugs useless. Why don't they have special flights for people with babies, huh? And while they're at it, they should have special rows for fat people too, with just one big seat and no armrests. Fit 'em in there according to ass size, like in a church pew, as many across as needed for ballast.
So anyway, what's REALLY nice on international flights now is that they have those little video maps and timetables you can check periodically, so that you can see that five minutes has passed since the last time you checked it. It's like your inner child going 'are we there yet?' in your head every few minutes. Maddening. And they encourage this.
OK, so after weeks in the air, landed at Heathrow Airport in London for a three-hour layover. Yeah, that was all I could get. Three hours (or so I thought) to wait for a one-hour flight across the channel. Not only that, but Heathrow, like many airports all over the world, is run by complete idiots. Yes, even though airplanes come and go day in and day out from all over the planet, it seems that when the employees of Heathrow go to bed at night, they forget all about just exactly what it is that they do, and they have to start over each morning.
There were signs pointing in opposing directions, saying the same thing. There were crowds of arriving passengers completely confused as to where to go next, and no one to tell them. I could swear that nobody worked there at all. The atmosphere was one of complete chaos. A recording kept playing over the intercom, apologizing in a female voice for the confusion, but not explaining why. But there were no flesh-and-blood humans to be found, other than travelers trying desperately to figure out why the single line they were forced to stand in that snaked through the entire airport was not moving at all. Several people in line with me missed their connecting flights while standing there; it was then that I became grateful for my 3-hour layover. Turns out they were short-handed, with one security checkpoint for ALL arriving flights, and nobody to tell anyone the situation. Lovely. Three hours later, I barely made it onto my connecting flight to Paris.
To be continued...
* * *
posted by brioSphere at 1:34 PM
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