The trip from SF to Munich and London Heathrow was delayed. My brother Dave who was on his way down the motorway from Gloucester to meet me at the airport thought it was because George Bush was scheduled to fly into Europe at about the same time so all other flights from USA were delayed. That man has a lot to answer for!
Boarding the plane at SF was stressful. Jackie ran me to the airport and Sholeh had checked me in on my laptop before we got there, but the delay made me nervous so going through the security check I was all fingers and thumbs with getting the laptop out, my see-through toilet gear out of my back-pack and my boots off. There was an assertive American family behind me so I told them to go through first and in the general scramble I dropped my boarding pass and panicked when I realised it was missing. In the meantime, I was trying to keep an eye out for Jackie who was waving at me from the departure gate. I felt quite disorientated leaving her and the welcome I had whilst I sampled a little of California culture. But eventually I was through the security check and found my boarding gate lounge. I toyed with the idea of trying to logon to the airport's wi-fi system, but decided that was adding to my stress so passed the time until delayed boarding with my pen and notepad.
One of the things I thought about was how the new mobile technologies are great for providing a support structure and a connection to other parts of my life whilst I am on the move but they also prevent me from slipping into that space of disconnection that enables me to travel with an open and relaxed frame of mind. So as well as the technical skills that I have to learn in using the technology with a degree of comfort, I also have to master techniques for using the technology to suit myself.
I managed to get almost a full night's sleep on the way to Munich. The plane was full but I had an aisle seat and the young man on the window seat was uncommunicative and did not need to get up at all. We made up a bit of time but I still missed the connecting flight to Heathrow. There were no more Lufthansa flights that night so I was transferred to a British Airways flight and was able to phone my brother to let him know about the delay. When we landed, I made the mistake of using my Australian passport rather than my British passport to enter the country and that meant I was in a very slow moving queue with only two people processing everybody. In addition, the new baggage handling facilities at Heathrow are a total mess! The electronic information boards just tell all flights to "Please wait" rather than putting up the carousel number and everyone had to mill around trying to locate where their bags were. So it probably took as long to get through immigration and baggage claim as the flight over had taken.
Anyway, I eventually walked out through the arrivals door and found my brother waiting for me. We just had to negotiate getting out of the car park still left to do and then we were on the motorway for the hour and a half drive to his home in Churcham near Gloucester. By the time we got there and had a sample of the Glenfiddich I'd brought from Duty Free it was 2.30am. I'll put this up and say a little bit about my brother's place in my next post once I've taken some photos to put up.
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