The Endless Flight to... Where?
I guess pilots get lost, too
y first day out of the
country has proven to be rather difficult for me to face writing about. This is probably
because it was such an irritating day to live through. What's even worse was that it
wasn't a funny sort of irritating that would make for real fun stories to tell. It was
mainly straight-up tedium, served in dollops large enough to remind me that I haven't made
any positive contributions to my karma since the last time I went on vacation.
To be sure, the day started out nice enough. Not only did I have a whole row of seats on the plane to stretch out on, I also had my pick of all the free wine and soft-drinks I could swill, and a collection of movies to watch that'd cost me $3 a pop on pay-per-view at home.
It really is amazing that after paying a few hundred bucks for the privilege of climbing into a sardine tin (without the benefit of the olive oil), I'd be getting excited at the prospect of getting a few bucks worth of free entertainment. And we all know that the only reason the airlines provide us with anything to do is to keep us in our seats, rather than let us entertain notions of having group therapy sessions with the flight crew in order to explore the reasoning behind the topology and geometry of the seats.
Yeah, right. They also provide this entertainment, as I have said previously, to keep us awake so we'll be in maximally rocky shape when we get to London.
Of course, for me, getting to London isn't quite as straight forward as climbing onto a plane that's parked behind a gate that says "London." In fact, it is a sad truth in my life that should I board a plane for London, it will land at any destination other than the one originally planned.
The last time I tried to go to London, the plane landed at Prestwick instead of Gatwick. Well, at least they got the last syllable right, but it wasn't entirely helpful. This time, landing anywhere sounded like a good idea. We eventually landed at Heathrow, which would have been great, except that we were supposed to land at Gatwick.
All of which makes me wonder whether Gatwick exists at all, or whether
it's a hastily constructed prop, put in place solely to irritate me whenever I get a
hankerin' for haggis.
This was my BT Phonecard. The booth
where I bought it said "Buy it here; Use it everywhere." As I turned out, I could use it virtually nowhere, as
most of the country's payphones still expected an older format of phone card, which this
wasn't.
It all started when the pilot got onto the PA. I don't know exactly what he said, mainly because one of the things that Virgin didn't refurbish on this plane was the PA system. Apparently, they bought it used from some old A&W Rootbeer drive-in stand. They also had the volume turned all the way down. What I heard was:
{sputter}... Captain... for flying Virgin... we ... on schedule... sorry... fog at Gatwick... lost map... fuel... before tomorrow.
No one could tell what they said, but it seemed like an awful good reason for groaning and complaining, so we all launched into a few choruses of self pity. This kept us occupied for a few hours, or at least until the sun came up. I suppose the groaning and self pity continued after that, but in the light of day, I found myself more distracted by looking out the window, and remembering that this 747 was probably older than England itself, and there might be other things that they hadn't refurbished.
For instance, I really was wondering whether I should be able to see so much daylight through what should have been the pylon holding the number 1 engine to the wing. I eventually figured that there were three other engines, and that the fact that the wing was still opaque was sort of encouraging.
What was even more exciting was the full tour of the southern English countryside we were getting. The pilots were doing the most amazing series of figure-eights and circles, in effort to kill off a few hours, presumably waiting until the fog on the ground burned off. What I found so interesting was that the only patch of fog in sight seemed to be hanging over what I presumed to be Gatwick. Well, Gatwick, or some construction site.
{sputter... crackle} ... Captain... fog... out of fuel... fog... Heathrow... urger and fries... clearance... trying... make Dunblane... like a picnic... flying Virgin.
Another five minute soliloquy over the PA, and still I couldn't figure out what was going on. Well, more groaning, and more daylight seen through the number 1 pylon.
By now, the free movies had stopped, and all the flight attendants were on strike, because they were tired of all the groaning.
We circled for a little while longer, then very silently, glided into Heathrow. As soon as the plane came to a stop on the tarmac, at least a mile from the nearest terminal, all the aisle blockers were out of their seats, dumping their luggage into the aisles. The flight attendants came on the PA, evidently a second PA system, because we could understand what they were saying:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for flying with us on Virgin Atlantic's flight VS12, service from Boston Logan to London Gatwick Airport. At the current time, we seem to have landed at Heathrow Airport. As we realize that most of you have connecting flights out of Gatwick Airport, we expect that this may present something of an inconvenience to you.
As a service to you, we have elected to not allow you to de-plane at this time. In a few hours, we will be departing London's Heathrow Airport to resume our service to Gatwick. From there, you may de-plane and resume any travel plans you may have had.
For now, we would ask that you remain in your seats until further notice. Our flight attendants will be resuming the complementary drinks service for your comfort.
Once again, we would like to thank you for flying with us on Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and we hope that we have a chance to make it up to you someday.
And true to their word, we sat there on the tarmac for the next two hours. Of course, there weren't any movies, and they were mostly out of free drinks. About the only entertainment they could provide for us was getting to watch them refuel our plane, and a little later on, getting to watch the ground crew go through our luggage.
This would have been a nice opportunity to catch up on some sleep, except for the occasional interruption when the drinks trolley would bash into my head, or when the captain would come back on the PA to tell us something totally unintelligible.
{sputter} ... Captain... fuel... fog... cleared for takeoff... seventy-eighth... queue... once again... assurances... sometime by tomorrow... flying Virgin Atlantic.
We got to watch the British air traffic system in action. Basically, we'd get to see one aircraft hurtle down the runway, followed by tea service for all others waiting in line before the next aircraft was cleared for takeoff. It took a while. It also meant having to come to the inescapable conclusion that the Airbus 340 is beyond a doubt the ugliest aircraft ever put into service. We were forced to come to this conclusion, because the taxi-ways were positively littered with them, all of which were in the process of having their engines reattached or jump-started. That number 1 pylon was starting to look pretty good.
To make an already long story merely long, we got into Gatwick about five and a half hours late, which come to think of it is exactly how late I always get into Gatwick. Everyone had missed their connections, including me. This meant, among other things, calling the hotel in Inverness to tell them I was going to be late. Extremely late.
Interestingly, this turned into a bit of dumb luck for me, because while I missed at least two of the trains I'd planned on taking up to Inverness, it did mean just barely catching the daily running of the Scottish Pullman, which is approximately the nicest train I've ever been on. Of course catching it meant getting to London King's Cross station by way of a train that was completely unknown to all the most current train schedules that I'd acquired prior to the trip. This, in turn, meant riding a train through all of the grungiest parts of London. Then again, all parts of London strike me as grungy.
The Scottish Pullman was quite a change from the sort of
"barely refurbished 1940s era equipment" I've come to expect from Amtrak
and Via. By contrast, this train was
completely new equipment, with a first class section fitted with tables, table cloths
(made of actual cloth), with flowers and waiters and at-seat service at incredibly
inflated prices.
Even nicer service was available at even more inflated prices in the dining car. I had a very nice steak in the dining car, which was sort of odd, because eating steak is not the sort of thing I normally do.
I think the reason why I was so anxious to retreat to the dining car was that most of the first class section was filled with London yuppie scum. This in itself wasn't too bad, because as a group, yuppie scum tend to be rather antisocial. It's just that they're a bit behind their American brethren, and haven't yet realized how passe it is to be seen conducting continuous loud discussions on cellular phones. Therefore, the first class section was a cell-phone hell, with continual shouting, breedling, strutting, and "base-touching."
I probably would have done anything, short of sitting in coach, to get away from that.
Did I mention that my first destination was Inverness? I should mention that because most people would probably want to spend a day in London. I, on the other hand, would sooner gnaw out my own spleen than to have to spend more than an hour in London. I also saw taking a train to Inverness as a way of securing a comfortable seat in which I could catch up on my sleep that had been so consistently interrupted by the drinks trolley on the plane.
Well,
the seat was comfortable enough, but the yuppies weren't.
There was this other minor problem, namely that the train equipment was so up to date. According to one of the porters, the train was capable of topping out at about 120 MPH (I was soon to learn that the UK's conversion to the metric system two decades ago is strictly a hypothetical proposition).
Things happen on a train that fast that I would have never discovered on Amtrak or Via. For instance, we got to learn all sorts of interesting factoids about the compressibility of air every time we hit a tunnel. Most of the time, our heads felt more compressible than the air. When we'd pass a train heading the opposite direction, there'd be a shock-wave that'd be strong enough to make our ears pop. When we passed a train inside a tunnel, we were all left with heads that looked like raisins. This also interfered with my sleep.
I think if they're going to make trains run that fast, they need to have pressurized cabins.
Aside from getting my brains pounded into mush (or maybe because of it), it was a very nice train ride. Even more impressive was the fact that it arrived everywhere exactly when the schedule said it would. In fact, I found this to be true of virtually all the trains I took in Scotland. This led me to a basic truth:
The one thing you can say about John Major's government is that at least the trains run on time.
I liked saying that to people whenever possible. They'd giggle. They'd shiver. They'd never disagree.
The Scottish Pullman delivered me in relative comfort
(crushed cranium notwithstanding) to Edinburgh. Sadly,
I had to change trains there for the remaining leg to Inverness. Here, I
found that the father north we travel, the nattier the trains get. Still, four seats of
first class cut out of a coach section did afford me some distance from the drunken mob in
the rest of the train. I was soon to come to appreciate this first class travel as a way
of avoiding everyone possible. I could see that for the first time since I left
Connecticut that this was going to be a wonderful vacation, indeed.
The train got me to Inverness on time, which unfortunately was about 11:30 in the evening. Fortunately, there were taxi-cabs to be found. Unfortunately, I had picked a hotel for my first night that was about a 20 minute ride away. I don't know what was worse: having such a long ride at a time when I thought I was finally at my destination, or having to spend 20 minutes entertaining an extremely friendly cabby, who was nevertheless somewhat confused as to why anyone would want to fly from Boston to England in the middle of winter, only to go as far north as possible.
Nice guy, but I wasn't really in a talkative mood just right then.
I didn't get to check into my hotel until about midnight, and it was clear that the innkeeper had been keeping her whole family up awaiting my arrival. Even more interesting was that she made it clear to me that she wasn't going to let me go to bed until she'd fixed me something to eat. So, I found myself at midnight, trying to slurp down a steaming bowl of vegetable soup and crusty bread (a mainstay of the UK). Well, it was a pleasant nightcap.
What was even more pleasant was getting some real sleep for the first time since I woke up at 6:00 AM the previous day.
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