Airports are the only place where such behaviour can be seen on a regular basis and occasionally the numbers are tripled because 2 or 3 747's will take off within a few minutes of each other and 900 people will all be trying to squeeze onto the same lift!
So here I am in terminal 5 and I have a front row seat for the shenanigans to follow. I haven't had a problem as yet from my 2 visits to LHR recently. I get on the escalators to the connection railway. the escalotors are extremely long and make you descend 5 or 6 storeys until you are well underground and have a short march to the train. You get a good view of the internal wowrkings of terminal 5.
On my trip everyone was largely travelling to the same gate so I just followed the herd. As I neared the gate I passed a couple who looked like they not only had the wrong departure gate but probably the wrong airport too. It struck from some of my earlier flying experience that Airports were not good places to be lost. Too much distance to cover if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Embarkation is just more queuing. Queue to have your boarding pass checked and then queue to get on the actual plane. Bound to happen if you have 300 people getting on through one door and only 2 of the campest stewards you have ever seen shuffling us all down the correct aisle.
Now, I saw an article on the BBC news website that claimed an american professor had devised the perfect way of loading an aircraft. Traditionally airlines seem to load rows at a time starting from the back. This physicist/mathmatician/boffin decided that it was best to do it in columns. Window seats first and then aisles next.
This link will explain everything.
I prefer an aisle seat for long journeys, as an anxious introvert I hate to have to disturb people so that I may make my way to a toilet. I have no problem with being disturbed, it leaves me in control in a rather pathetic way. So much so that once on a flight I sat in a row of 5 on the aisle. A very polite Dutch couple were in the next seats to me. I just thought I would rest my eyelids for a few seconds and when I flicked them open moments later my neighbours had vanished. I looked around the cabin for them just in case I had actually imagined them or they really had vanished. I then spied them at the front of the cabin. They were making their way the long way round, as it turned out to get to their hand luggage. They had disturbed the 2 passengers on the other aisle and were making their way. It was very sweet but also annoying as I had to pretend to be asleep not only while they fiddled around in the overhead locker but for a decent length of time after they had sat down again so as not to overly upset my fellow travellers.
Back to this flight and I found my place and plonked myself down. The window seat was occupied by the lad I saw at Newcastle with dreadlocks and for a long while I was hopeful the middle seat was unoccupied . The flow of passengers slowed to a trickle and the cabin crew had started to move up and down the aisle removing luggage that people had sat on their laps or shoved into other peoples foot wells. Looking good I thought. However, just like that sneaky goal that Manchester Utd get in the 98th minute of the game having played out all the extra time and some, this young lady rolled up to my row and took her seat. Drat!
For some reason I have never struck up a conversation with a fellow traveller. Well except once, on the same trip as above, but that as they say is another story.
It was to be a long flight, I had a book that I was well into so I reckoned I was well set. I was so into the book I cannot remember what it was. That is going to irritate me now. Well no matter.
The flight was as advertised, It got to Vancouver, the in flight entertainment was as specified. What can I say? Of my companions dreadlocks must of either been in an extreme state of dehydration as he made not one trip to the loo. The young lady managed one trip some 3 hours after my trip and considering she had more alcohol than me I reckon that was pretty good too. I had reckoned on a few more disturbances throughout the flight.
The only bit of note was the extreme turbulence we hit just off the coast of Greenland. I may have had worse to be fair but any turbulence in a plane as big as a 747 is disconcerting to say the least
Not my video I must add just a random one off youtube that demonstrates just how scary wingwatching can be. Are wings supposed to shake that much?
Landing in Canada is just such a contrast with the US. It was like coming back to the UK. Pretty much got waved through. I even mis filled in the customs stuff and the geezer behind the desk did it for me. In the US you get sent to the back of the queue like some naughty boy at school. And another thing, why do the US ask such damn fool questions on their forms. What idiot is going to admit to being a) a Nazi b) an international terrorist c) A drug smuggler ? and now I have to pay to fill the form in before I travel. They shouldn't judge us all by their own standards. Rant over.
My first impressions of Vancouver were a little limited as it was dark by the time I left the terminal.
They say a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. I found the weak link in 6 months of planning.
I arrived the night before the wedding (remember? the reason for the trip?) everyone was in "lockdown" mode. It was all over bar the shouting. No more organising etc so everyone was letting their hair down and kicking back. I had, bravely I thought, refused offers of lifts in favour of the Canada Line Skytrain.
My closest family were dining at a restaurant called The Old Spaghetti Factory in an area called Gastown. As I was arriving around 7 pm all the festivities would be in full swing and I thought it unsporting of me to get all Prima Donna and start demanding pickups and drop offs. As it happened the down town restaurant was at theend of the Canada Line so all I had to do was stretch my legs a bit and find the restaurant. With the aid of 21st century technology I had reccied downtown Vancouver with Google Earth and my smart phone (laptop being disabled) so knew roughly where to go. Always looks different on the ground doesn't it ?
So all I had to do was get on a train. Now the British Army has a philosphy about warfare that no matter how detailed the planning is any battle plan will only last for 20 minutes after 1st contact with the enemy. That is about as long as I lasted. I couldn't get the payphones to recognise my cards and I only had some Canadian Dollars in note form.
So I struck out for the Canada Line. However I couldn't get on the damn thing as the ticket machine that purported to accept notes steadfastedly refused to accept any of those I had about my person. This eventuality had not been on my list of top 50 things that were going to ruin my evening.
I had made it approximately 4500 mile thus far without so much as a hiccup and now the whole thing was going to fall apart in the last 10.
Would I be able to buy a ticket using my already declined credit cards? would I be left stranded at the airport? Would any body come to find me? Did they realise I was missing?
You will have to wait and see
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