Category: Travel

We boarded our plane at 8:30, an hour and a half late. A half hour we were finally off to Newark, and I was nearly home. As I was dozing off, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“I’m sorry, we’re having some trouble with the equipment. We can’t seem to deice properly, so we’re unable to reach the appropriate altitude. We’ll be turning around back to Detroit.”

Swapping my first class seat in an Avro for a window coach seet on an A319, around 10:45 we were ready to try again. We passed through deicing and were airborne. We arrived in Newark not too much later.

Without the checked luggage, of course. Granted, I’d rather be here, now, at home, than still in Detroit.

As if everything else wasn’t sufficient, my flight from DTW to EWR was delayed at least 1.5 hours, while the time difference is beginning to catch up.

I just can’t seem to catch a break. 🙂

I watched London pass by through the taxi window, unsure whether to laugh or cry over the events of the past five days. Having the cell phone stolen. Stubbornly wandering around London looking for a non-existant restaurant. The crummy exchange rate. The uncomfortable silences. The stress and the stress-induced insomnia, headaches and stomachaches. The inability to eat anything substantial for two days. Dragging luggage across Paris metro stations through turnstiles too small to actually accommodate them while wandering up and down steps with no escalators or lifts as options. The rip-off charges for making international phone calls from hotel phones. The morning after headache from delicious-yet-too-quickly consumed wine the night before. Her own stubbornness, no less than mine certainly.

The driver made his announcement, briefly interrupting my thoughts. “Five minutes to the station, sir.”

The whole trip, from my point of view, seems best summed up by a scene outside Paddington Station as we were taking a taxi to the Hilton Kensington last night. As we were walking toward the taxi, I said I would get out the address of the hotel. Not to be outdone, she also had to dig through her bag to find her paperwork to get out the address, even though by the time she’d begun I’d already found it. I looked at her brother, who just shrugged. After we’d climbed in to the cab, we both made quick comments to each other about it. And I know she said back, “I’m not the only one.”

I do hope she realizes I was teasing her.

I know I can be stubborn to a fault, which explains part of the frustration of the trip for me. Her stubbornness, which when combined with mine, probably wore on the both of us at times. What I found most frustrating was her refusal of any offers of help. If she was trying to prove something, she really doesn’t need to. Her independence, resolve and spirit are impressive enough. Sometimes showing some flexibility or a willingness to yield are important as well.

I could continue to focus on the items that made this whole event something of a debacle, but it wasn’t all bad.

I love Paris. The streets are clean, the people speak a funny language I understand a few phrases of, the cultural value of the city is phenomenal, and the food and wine are delicious. I was able to drink more on this trip than on nearly every other trip I’ve been on, which I wholly appreciated. I caught up on reading, saw an Andrew Lloyd Weber show that isn’t available on Broadway yet (and may never be), and had a few nice dinners. I was able to experience British Airways, with service in coach that was a treat relative to the comparable domestic US experience. I took some great photos, I hope, and had a great time Tuesday with her and her brother, for the most part. If the rest of the trip had gone more like that day, perhaps this would have been a different experience altogether.

Originally written 21 November 2004.

The green display of the clock read 2 a.m. when I woke up, angry. I tossed and turned for the next three hours, designing ways of expressing my irritation over the rudeness I’d felt. There was a torrent of emotion I wanted to release, and had she been there then I would have been more than happy to express it.

I finally slept, drugged by the effects of Tylenol PM, sometime around 5 in the morning. My plans of roaming central London Sunday morning went down somewhere with the pills, and the post-wakefulness drugged state left me dull-witted. When she called sometime after 11 I was curt, similarly when I saw her downstairs in the lobby as we wandered about down toward the zoo and back to the hotel. She sensed the foul mood right away.

The funk, as it usually does, leaves me silent when I should have spoken. But by the time had come for me to speak my peace, I’d forgotten the words.

Originally written on 20 November, 2004
Outside the Gap store in Picadilly Circus was a huge, bustling crowd. We exited, forcefully, swimming through the sea of passers-by until we were deposited in an empty area a few hundred feet up. I checked my pockets, a natural, instinctive reaction.

There was something missing. My left pocket felt empty, a large bulge from the cell phone gone. We made our way back to the Palace Theatre, where just a short time before we’d watched a matinee showing of Andrew Lloyd’s new musical “The Woman in White”. The show was enjoyable, dark, and even though it ended well still left a shiver down my spine.

The box office told me to enquire at the stage door. The gentleman at the door said no one had reported anything, and I left my number in the event they came across it later in the evening.

Her mood had soured considerably. The next two hours we spent wandering about in the Picadilly Circus/Oxford/Trottenham area trying to find the restaurant we had planned to eat at further sapped her morale. We eventually selected an Indian restaurant, outside the sleeze of the nude picture show storefronts. The food was good, in fact, and the mood rebounded somewhat. Nonetheless, I was tired, cold, frustrated and rather unhappy, and I’m somehow sure she wasn’t in much better spirits. The meal, and the further return home, were rather quiet.

Earlier, while we were waiting for the show to start, she had said she was having a good time and was glad I had come. I couldn’t respond to that, because I’m not sure I should have. Certainly this trip has been more uncomfortable for me than any others I’ve been on. And today’s cell phone incident is only a small part.

The phone has been reported stolen to the company and a police report filed. And I’m still questioning if this trip was really a good idea.

Originally written on 19 November, 2004
She asked me to go to London with her. As friends. We were both going anyway, sometime in November. Why not travel together? She knew I was attracted to her, but she invited me anyway. I agreed, in the moment.

I discussed the situation with my close friends. “Dumb idea,” they said. “How could you agree?” I didn’t have an answer. It felt like the thing to do at the time, even though as the date of the trip approached I began dreading it more and more.

We spent the next two months talking regularly, getting together a few times. Finding hotels, setting up a vague itinerary. Deciding on activities. Booking hotels.

We met this morning at Gatwick airport, found our hotel, went wandering about near Regents Park. Took a dinner river cruise on the Thames in our smart clothing. Ate, drank, and took pictures. The boat spun in circles under the London Bridge while “Hallelujah” played over the speakers.

I realized I this would not be an easy trip for me, and that I should have never come.

Wake up. Shower. Rush out the door. Get into the car. Drive 3 miles to Route 95 in 5 minutes. Get on 95. Hit gas. Hit brakes. Gas. Brake. Gas-Brake-Gas-Gas-Brake-Brake-Brake-Brake-Gas-Gas-Brake. Merge on to 495. Brake-Brake-Brake-Brake-Brake-Gas-Brake-Brake-Gas-Brake-Gas-Gas. Get off 495.

The time to travel 27 miles from Laurel, MD, to Rockville, MD, takes over an hour. Without any accidents. How do these people do it every day?

As we fade in to Fall 2004, it’s time to begin the annual destination selection for the following year.

For 2004, the plan was to visit London, South Korea, Brussels, Rio de Janiero, and Istanbul. Of those, the trips to London and South Korea have occurred roughly as planned. The trip to Brussels instead became a trip to Barcelona, while Rio (random Flyertalk thread of guy drugged and robbed while there) and Istanbul (proximity to Iraq, random bombings around Turkey) were postponed.

Now that 2005 is “around the corner”, it’s time to begin the planning. The short list of travel candidates this year include the following:

Brussels
Italy (Rome and environs)
China (Beijing)
Thailand (Bangkok)
Argentina
South Africa (Capetown)
Turkey (Istanbul)
Egypt (Cairo)

And, if possible, I’m going to attempt to organize a group trip to Costa Rica.

But first, London in November.

An brief narrative of another liquidation, given that US Airways is on the cusp of filing Chapter 11 and may not make it out.

If you want a sense of the degradation of the Haight/Ashbury area of SF, the stores at the intersection provide a superb indication. On one corner, GAP, the quintessential American clothing venture. Across the street, a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop, the faux-hippie enterprise devoted to satiating overweight Americans. The hippie panhandlers decry the very people they seek money from. All in all, a fall from the ideals it once represented.

Not that that should come as any surprise, as the free-love crowd came to seek commercial success. And they have generally found it, as living standards have increased beyond imagination in the past few decades. A fair trade, for some at least. And those flowing skirts and peasant tops make for some very pretty women.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the beatnik downtown, I absolutely love the city. The young life, the relatively well integrated populations combined with their cultural and linguistic diversity are all elements that make SF such a unique place relative to so many other urban areas. Sure, the city has its marks. The high rate of panhandling and the expensive cost of housing come to mind instantly. But on the whole the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Which is why, in a few months’ time, I’ll be back here again.