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On holiday - Part 1
Nov. 17th, 2007 09:11 pmI feel like I've just been transported back in time about three centuries. At the moment I'm sitting in Whitney's grandmother's house, in a room that many years ago used to be her mother's bedroom and still looks like part of the set of Blackadder the Third. We're here for a few days to go to the other grandmother's 80th birthday before we drive up the road to the Bay Area to spend the rest of the week.
The six-hour flight over was undoubtedly not the most horrendous experience of my life, partly because I had prepared myself by putting several tons of British TV onto the iPod I got from them last Christmas. I used not to mind flying that much after getting over a fear of it that lasted until I was about sixteen, but now that I've flown so regularly between various parts of America and Britain I've become aware of just how dull the whole experience always is. My work laptop is now unable to help because its two batteries are almost entirely shot and have a combined capacity of about 11% of what they originally had. So I sat watching Father Ted, while Whitney's brother slowly slumped further and further into the aisle, scaring many small children.
Then something that only happens in films happened - one of the air-hostesses came on the loudspeaker and asked if there were any doctors on board, because we had a passenger with a medical emergency. This was followed by a lot of running about with defibrillators (which no matter how serious their use, is still a ridiculous word that sounds like something out of a Roald Dahl book). His condition undoubtedly helped our flight land faster, because we came in very sharp and there were ambulance crews waiting for our arrival. However, he walked off by himself when they came to get him, so he wasn't as dead as they thought.
Long Beach Airport looks like what could politely be described as a concentration camp. I thought that Aberdeen's airport was small, but this is just a tiny hut surrounded by some planes - even the baggage carousels are relegated to outside the building, next to a tall fence with loops of barbed wire across the top and tannoys mounted on every spiked fence post. After we grabbed our bags I was half-expecting some Daleks to turn up and escort us off, but Whitney's parents picked us up before they could arrive.
And now my internal clock is hopelessly confused, I'm falling asleep in the middle of the day, have no idea what anyone is saying or what's going on - so things are pretty much normal. Time to go to the cocktail party.
The six-hour flight over was undoubtedly not the most horrendous experience of my life, partly because I had prepared myself by putting several tons of British TV onto the iPod I got from them last Christmas. I used not to mind flying that much after getting over a fear of it that lasted until I was about sixteen, but now that I've flown so regularly between various parts of America and Britain I've become aware of just how dull the whole experience always is. My work laptop is now unable to help because its two batteries are almost entirely shot and have a combined capacity of about 11% of what they originally had. So I sat watching Father Ted, while Whitney's brother slowly slumped further and further into the aisle, scaring many small children.
Then something that only happens in films happened - one of the air-hostesses came on the loudspeaker and asked if there were any doctors on board, because we had a passenger with a medical emergency. This was followed by a lot of running about with defibrillators (which no matter how serious their use, is still a ridiculous word that sounds like something out of a Roald Dahl book). His condition undoubtedly helped our flight land faster, because we came in very sharp and there were ambulance crews waiting for our arrival. However, he walked off by himself when they came to get him, so he wasn't as dead as they thought.
Long Beach Airport looks like what could politely be described as a concentration camp. I thought that Aberdeen's airport was small, but this is just a tiny hut surrounded by some planes - even the baggage carousels are relegated to outside the building, next to a tall fence with loops of barbed wire across the top and tannoys mounted on every spiked fence post. After we grabbed our bags I was half-expecting some Daleks to turn up and escort us off, but Whitney's parents picked us up before they could arrive.
And now my internal clock is hopelessly confused, I'm falling asleep in the middle of the day, have no idea what anyone is saying or what's going on - so things are pretty much normal. Time to go to the cocktail party.
