UK adventure in detail: part the first

Written on 12/23/05:

4 hours 44 minutes until we land in London. 2,612 miles. I'm not tired, which isn't surprising considering it's not even midnight Chicago time, but it's 6:30 AM-ish in London and I'm fucked if I haven't slept. Ambivelant about spending quite this much time with the family. I love them, but they are crazy. My parents both get obscenely anxious on vacations. My dad becomes even more intense and type-A than usual while my mom simply won't exhale until we're home. She's also the queen of Jewish Mother Guilt--subtler than the average bear, but still it's a constant, "No, no, don't worry about me, do what you want, really, whatever makes the rest of the group happy." Then we're selfish ungrateful brats for never doing what she wants to do. My sister should be more of a fun travel peer than when we were younger. Mark doesn't want us ditching him for pubs, but I would like to go out with Lynn one night while we're abroad.

Airline lasagne is wreaking havvok or havoc or have-vuck on my tummy. I'm all crampy. This is why I shouldn't eat dairy, like, ever, but I do. It is too delicious. Damn you, cows.

This airplane is quite spiffy. Each seat has its own little tv with 10 channels playing 2 hour-ish cycles of movies and shows. The armrests contain remote controls for the tv, light, flight attendant call button, and the flip side of said remote is an AirFone with credit card swipey thing on the side, and if that weren't enough, the whole thing also has buttons so if you hold it horizontally it's a video game controller. Brilliant contraption, really, though I don't see any available video games.

Jesus. Fart burp fart fart cramp burp buzzy brain.

3 hours 33 minutes left. Odd I should flip back to the flight distance monitor thing right then. 1,886 miles. That's another option on the little tvs: our flight path with maps, times, miles, and temperatures of various shit. There are also a number of radio stations including a non-sucky classical station, an entire station of classic rock songs that in some way reference travel, and a "nu jazz" station with both classic jazz greats and shitty awful smooth jazz assclowns.

We're apparently over the Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland, not that I can see outside. It's a two-aisle plane (Boeing 777) and I'm on the inside of the middle chunk, though without a person in the seat to my right. AA's diagram here, my diagram:

Written now about then:

After the plane trip, we took the from the airport to the Paddington Station of stuffed bear fame. My dad had a very difficult time with the ticket-purchasing machine because, while he is a very smart man, he is a complete moron when it comes to computers and doesn't know it. He insists on using the ATMs and other machines without help and then takes forever and gets frustrated and frazzeled as he fucks up such simple instructions as "enter number and press OK." He also still has it in his head that the best way to exchange currency is to bring lots of US dollars and go to the currency exchanges. This is not the case. I told him, my sister told him, but still he insisted on lugging around the Benjamins and, even dumber, going to the currency exchange counter at the airport. For those of you who have not traveled to ATM-filled countries with different currencies in the past 10 years, I will explain. Currency exchanges and banks all post their exchange rates. Some also charge a fee. The rate you get is much like gas prices in that they're around the same but they do vary and you can never be quite sure if a better one is around the corner. Now if you have an ATM card with any one of a few bazillion international ATM logos on it (chances are very good that you do, even if your bank is fairly local) you can go to any ATM that accepts said international bank logos. Most of the ATMs in the UK and urban Europe do. You use the ATM just like you would back in the good ol' U.S. of A. The bank then automatically converts however many pounds or Euros or whatever you take out into US dollars using the exchange rate posted in the Wall Street Journal. This rate is invariably better than anything you can find at a currency exchange, and so. much. easier. Even if they charge you a few bucks service fee.

That's enough on money.

The woman who had sat by my father on the plane was also on our train ride into London. My parents had been talking to her and then, half asleep, I also talked to her a bit. She's been living in Chicago for less than a year and lost her job and is trying to figure out what to do next. As we parted ways at the train station, my mother jumped in to say "you two should exchange phone numbers and get together back in Chicago!" At least it wasn't a Boy and I'm getting too old to be mortified by my mother. So I now have this random girl's phone number. She was perfectly nice, so if she calls me I'm happy to be friendly, but I do not want/need my mother setting me up with friends. I'd like to think I'm at least a little less pathetic than that.

Ok, I'm going to be Hannah now and post a day or two at a time a week late. Now, I take a well-deserved nap and maybe wake up around 11:55 PM to watch the ball drop on TV and then go back to sleep until my body is happy again.