My first flight was running late.
If you’ve done much travelling, then you know this is typically not a good thing. Sure, occasionally you’re running late, or you were cutting it close with a really short layover, but the vast majority of the time, this is bad news resulting in possible outcomes ranging from mild inconvenience to full-blown catastrophe. This was my first flight of the day, which would take me from the little airport in Huntsville, Alabama to Chicago, where I would hop on a flight to Heathrow. In other words, this delay would put me in danger of missing my flight to England.
Airports are, for me, inherently temples of anxiety. Not because any one thing you have to do is particularly nerve-racking, not because you have to perform great feats of courage or intellect or fortitude, but because it is a place where your schedule rules and there is little to do but look at flight information, wait, or rush. Things that happen in airports aren’t experiences; they are scheduling changes. Every moment of your time at the airport becomes important only in the ways it might impact your ability to catch your flight. If your bag gets searched at security, will that mean that you have to skip the magazine racks at the kiosk close to your gate? If you stop for coffee now, will you have to make a trip to the restrooms uncomfortably close to boarding time, or even worse, use the airplane bathroom an extra time? If the overhead bins are full and your carry-on has to go to the luggage hold, does that mean you’ll miss your flight while you’re waiting for your bags? These are the questions that plague our minds at airports. (At least they plague my mind. If you are completely unconcerned about these things, I am both impressed and a little.)
I had checked one bag, and then carried my backpack and the messenger/diaper bag. My original plan had been to do everything carry-on, but at the last minute (really the last minute, I was rearranging things in the trunk of my parents’ car before we left for the airport) I realized it was futile. I just hadn’t packed light enough. So because my “big” suitcase was carry-on-sized, my backpack was pretty full. It wasn’t actually supposed to go in the cabin on the little short-haul tiny-plane I took to get to my international flight, but the crew was harried enough with the delays that they didn’t notice it when I boarded. I stuck it against the wall behind my legs and it went undetected for the whole flight.
When I reached my connection, the last boarding call for my flight was being announced as I stepped off the plane. I gave thanks that I had illegally snuck my bag onto the plane, and hoped against hope that my checked back would make it, and did an awkward, shuffling mixture of running and walking to the gate. I made it just in time! I had changed my seat at the check-in desk from the middle of a middle row to a window seat at the back. The seat didn’t recline, but since only monsters recline their seats on planes anyway, I didn’t mind. Of course the person in front of me was just such a monster; she took a sleeping pill, laid her seat as far back as it would go, and kept it there for the remainder of the flight. Even at meals, she just sat up and left her seat completely reclined. A word to the wise: Do not be that person.
I had a slight windfall with my seat mate. I’m pretty sure he was the air marshal, because he brought his own food and spent the majority of the flight walking around and chatting with the flight crew. I took the opportunity to lie down across the two seats and take a nap.
It was lucky I did, because once we got to London, I had most of the day ahead of me. Flights from America to Europe usually go overnight, and then land in the morning. This means you have a choice to make about what to do with your first day. You can power through the day and go to bed at a normal (though far off from your normal time zone) time, or you can take a nap and hope that you get up and get your schedule straightened out quickly. The former is always the best option. Try to find something laid back to do that will keep you awake but won’t take too much brain power or attention, and call it an early night. Then you fare a far better chance of waking up the next morning at a reasonable time ready to get started with your adventures.
Here’s the thing about flying into a famous city: you always expect breathtaking views of all of the most famous landmarks, sweeping along beneath you as you cross this fair city of your arrival, but it almost never happens. No matter how many times I fly into a beautiful city, I never learn. I am always craning for the windows, hoping, even expecting, to catch a glimpse of something of note. I was looking as hard as I could for the Houses of Parliament, for Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s – and of course I saw none of it. The thing is, airports are never in the center of town. They’re way out on the outskirts; the best you are likely to do is see some of the suburbs and some agricultural fields beyond that. In a way, I’m glad I never learn. That moment of anticipation, when you’re trying to see past the plane wing to catch a glimpse of something beautiful, is just too delicious to let go of.
Travelling into the city from the airport at street level, though? That is a different story.
We rode a coach (those big travel busses; they’re called coaches in the UK) from the airport to our dorm. I made sure to plop myself down in a seat by the window, so that I could see everything as we went by. I was thrilled by everything we passed, from the majestic St Pancras to lovely Georgian-style townhouses right down to humble red-brick dwellings on the outskirts of London.
As we drew near the City, the streets filled with people. Handsome young men strode purposefully down the sidewalks in beautifully tailored suits, heading for jobs in finance, housed in tall glass skyscrapers. Cars and busses and taxis filled the streets. Everywhere was bustle and business just refraining from bubbling over into chaos. It was beautiful.
