Saturday, April 13, 2013

Safely in San Fran!


This is Rebecca Farnum, reporting from the air. (Well, I’m typing this on the plane. I probably won’t actually “report” until in my hotel, when I’ll copy and paste this into the actual internet instead of a Word document. But whatever.)
We had a bit of a touch and go morning in regards to travel.
The Tube was severely delayed…and only the Picadilly line that travels to Heathrow. There was a broken signal at a station several stops away from Russell Square (where I boarded), and so it took us about twice as long as it should have to get to Heathrow. I rushed to the terminal around 9:25 (my flight was scheduled for 10:35), thinking they’d be scolding me and pushing me through lines. But there was a small queue, and none of the staff seemed remotely concerned at my supposed tardiness.
So I happily make my way through security and toward the gate…where they’re not boarding, even though I expect them to be and my boarding pass says they should be.
Mechanical problems! Hurrah!
We did eventually take off. We are apparently flying on a United plane with a part of the cockpit borrowed from British Airways. Since BA uses a different software system, we had to wait around for installation and everything. All very exciting. But we seem to be flying fine. And if this is posted, you can assume I’m safely arrived in San Francisco! ; )

As a rule, I love flying. Take off and landing always give me a happy little high, like riding a roller coaster. And I love watching the land get progressively smaller and bigger. I’m seated in the front row of economy, with the wall in front of me (=plenty of leg room and no one is yelling when I’m putting my feet up on said well). There’s no one in the middle seat, so my seatmate and I have spread out a bit. They are feeding and watering/sodaing us often. I used my extra time at Heathrow to buy a book from a favourite author and thoroughly enjoyed the first book for pleasure that I’ve managed to read in quite a while.
Less optimal: We don’t have individual screens for movies (I was hoping this flight was long enough that we’d have them; alas.) So no control over which movies to watch. This may be just as well, forcing me to get work done. (Or delay doing work by writing a lengthy blog post…heehee.) They are playing selected films on the big screen… “A Late Quartet”, “Playing for Keeps”, and now “Skyfall”. They’ve edited them a bit, but I still think it’s a bit strange to have “Skyfall”…I’m essentially being forced to watch violent beating up scenes out of the corner of my eye. Alas.
Also less optimal: The screen on my Kindle died at some point during Maddy’s and my travels about Ireland and the UK. Sadness. Again, perhaps a good thing, because more work. But a less good thing, since I bought books instead of borrowing them from the e-library, and now I have to figure out if I can repair Kindle somehow. But that is an issue for another day!

Anywho, all is relatively happy and stress-free in the life of Rebecca right now. The air stewardess came by a little while ago and asked for “trash”. I cringed. Hopefully I don’t sound too obnoxiously snobbish at this American conference with my Britishisms…


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