I have to admit, there is an element of this day I have been dreading. The flight? No. The airline food? No. The layover in the terminal between flights? No. It’s the jet lag. That all over body tired that accompanies shifting the internal clock nine hours ahead in the period of a 14 hour flight. I remember Versailles in 2015 and Rome In 2017. Those first 24 hours on the ground where local time is 10 in the morning and your body knows it is 1:00 in the morning and is crying out for sleep. You push through until evening, struggling to stay awake so you can force the hands of your internal clock forward, like pushing a reluctant lever forward against great resistance. Eventually it moves, but it is painful in the process.
We were up at 4:15 am this morning, showered, breakfasted on toast and loaded into Jackie’s car at 5:05am. Traffic was abundant but moving. She dropped us at the airport at 5:40am. We had already downloaded our boarding passes so went straight to TSA precheck. The line was long, but moved quickly and we were soon on the secure side of the airport. We took the shuttle to the south terminal, found our gate and settled in for the hour and a half wait for our flight.
About 25 minutes before we were to board, Sally and I simultaneously looked up and in unison spotted a familiar face and astonishingly said “That looks like Ruth Scott!” Ruth was my next door neighbor growing up in Seattle. As kids we used to put on plays and make movies for the neighborhood kids. She became involved in the Park Service in Olympic National Park in high school and has never looked back. She has built a career there, working her way up to head of wilderness for the park. There is not a sweeter person on the planet.
We called out her name and she quickly recognized us and came over. We chatted through all the boarding announcements, ignoring all the instructions. We knew we were at the back of the plane and would board last. We just kept an eye on the line as we talked and when it dwindled to nothing we finally rose and boarded the plane.
Ruth was only two rows behind us, but in a crowded plane it might as well be at other ends of the aircraft. About 15 minutes into the flight I heard “Chuck!” and turned around to see Ruth standing and addressing me. “The seat next to me is empty. Come sit back here.” I gathered my carry-on bag and was soon seated two rows back.
Ruth and I had a wonderful couple hours of catching up with news of friends, family and adventures. It made for a quick first leg of our journey. She was on her way to a wilderness conference in Michigan, catching a short hop out of Detroit. We, of course, are headed for London and then onto Madrid.
Upon landing we said goodbye. Sally and I walked the length of the Detroit airport to get to gate 54 for the flight to London. An uneventful 3 hours passed quickly and we soon boarded. As is our usual experience with buying cheap tickets from Expedia, we were in the last row of the plane. However, we were surprised to have a window and aisle seat next to each other. It was a wide body Airbus with a 2-4-2 configuration, so we had a little world to ourselves in the back of the plane.
What can you say about a 6.5 hour plane flight? It was light (and raining cats and dogs) when we left Detroit and light when we landed in London at 6:40am. In between it was dark as we raced eastward at about 600 mph. In PCT terms, that’s a month of travel an hour. Fast. The center row was vacant-three marvelous adjacent seats to stretch out on. Even though my internal clock said it was only 4 in the afternoon, the darkness and quiet of the plane convinced me to have a go at a sleep. Didn’t sleep much, but rested well for an hour as I stretched out to my full length. I relinquished the “bed” to Sally which she took over happily. She says she didn’t sleep during the two hours she reclined, but the time went really fast for her, so I think she nodded off.
We landed in London at 6:40am, and made our way from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 via bus. We were surprised that we did not have to go through customs or any kind of security check upon entering Britain. Everyone we asked said unless we left the airport there was no need to, so we found the Iberia Airline ticket counter, got our boarding passes for London to Madrid and went through security-England style.
It was an interesting study in contrasts on how one country secures their flights compared to another. Here in London we had to remove all liquid and gel containers and put them in a separate plastic bag that they supply. This plastic bag full of liquids is then placed in a bin. Our packs came through the scanner “ship shape and Bristol fashion” but the tray with the liquids was bumped aside to be inspected by a very dedicated person. She checked the size of each container. If it exceeded 100mL, even by a single mL she threw it away, after apologizing for having to do do. We lost two 4 oz bottles, one of shampoo and one of creme rinse and a tube of Shoe Goo. They met the US requirement, but 4 oz is 118 mL, so to the dust bin they went. As you can imagine, this slowed the process tremendously. It took us about 15-20 minutes to clear inspection after we had been body scanned as she thoroughly went through every bottle and electronic device.
Of course at this point I should stop writing because I am discussing Tuesday’s events in Monday’s blog post, but the two days melded into one, plus on Toledo time, all this was taking place on Monday about 11:00pm even though it was 8:00 am in London. I’ll close and continue the saga on tomorrow's post.
PS: If you noticed my postings are a bit longer than usual, blame the keyboard I decided to pack along with me. Much easier to use than typing with your thumbs!
No comments:
Post a Comment