This Trip, Part V: 25 March 2011

It began with one of those weird occurrences, that seem to happen most often when using public transportation in large cities, where you inadvertently find yourself following someone. There was the District Line to Earl's Court, then the transfer, then the Piccadilly train to St. Pancras, then the extremely long transfer to the Eurostar terminal. Opposite sides of a very large city, yet still remaining in the immediate vicinity of the exact same strangers all along. Do they realize what I realize? Are they concerned? Regardless, all of us made it to the Eurostar check-in and then trains would take us to various places, various countries.

And so it was, I boarded the train in London around 7:20am, along with all the others that weren't nearly as overdressed and/or giggly as those waiting for the trains for Paris. The Brussels crowd were a more subdued bunch, a little older and definitely less likely to be wearing sunglasses in a train station barely an hour after the sun had made its initial appearance for the day. Perhaps this string of relatively sunny days has Londoners excited about the concept of actually wearing their purchase whenever possible, given the possibility that a beam of light might actually shoot through a ceiling or window at any time.

The Eurostar was not exactly luxurious, but it was nice enough. Certainly nice enough considering it links three countries, goes underneath a somewhat major body of water, and does so at up to 186 mph. The beauty of internet research became apparent when I noticed my coach/car/whatever, number 5, was roughly half-full, despite being one of only two 2nd class cars with electrical outlets at every seat. This is customary in 1st class, but you have to figure this out for 2nd class. The seats alternate between the UK and Mainland outlet voltages, but thankfully I had a multi-function adapter anyway. Everything felt pretty great once I realized the seat next to me and in front of me were empty. The guy across the aisle was already asleep before the train moved, so it promised to be a nice trip. Then came this guy, talking in a very "entitled" voice to the train employee. It seems they weren't happy with their seats, possibly because the seats faced the opposite direction the train was moving. Mind you, when booking a ticket, this information is readily available to you. However, for whatever reason, this availability must not have applied here. The man, his wife and elderly mother ended up moving to the seats immediately in front of me on both sides of the aisle. Until I could subtly acquire my headphones from my bag (so as to not appear too obvious that my immediate response to their incessant babbling was to do anything I could to drown out their incessant babbling), I listened to some of the most inane and unnecessary chatter perhaps ever uttered, especially since they were unwelcome guests in our peaceful little slice of the universe known as car 5.

Brussels came quite quick, roughly 2 hours, but not too quick to enjoy a nice mix of Wolf Parade and Fruit Ninja on the iPhone. Oh yes, there was also that whole going-under-the-English-Channel-in-a-train thing. That was a unique experience, but only because of what it meant, not necessarily the actual physical experience. That part was basically nothing more than looking out a window into completely blackness for 20 minutes. Not unlike arriving in Brussels and realizing that most people probably speak English, but it isn't exactly advertised. All of the train station signs were in French and Dutch, which is somewhat discernible when you've had two years of French classes in school as recently as 1997, like me. As it turned out, once I stopped looking for the train going to Bruges, but instead for the train going through Bruges, I was set. The train to Oostente would deliver me to Bruges in roughly an hour, with a quick stop in Ghent.

So, just to get it out of the way, I was in fact In Bruges and yes, I did make a point of watching the movie again before this trip. Furthermore, yes, the town is just a nice and charming in that historical way as the movie makes it seem. A few things were slightly different, though. It wasn't snowing. In fact, it was quite mild, probably in the low 60s. Also, there's not really convenient way to jump from the top of the Belfort, as demonstrated by Brendan Gleeson in the movie. However, one thing is for sure, Colin Farrell's character was not unjust in expressing concern for the obese man attempting to climb to the Belfort's top. It is quite a draining experience, despite being less than 400 steps to the top. It gets quite tight and low in some spots too. Doing this in relatively warm weather with a backpack full of important items was quite a workout and produced quite a workout's amount of sweat and gasping for breath. Thankfully, there was lots of natural air conditioning and some very nice views at the top. Looking down on Bruges was sorta like looking down on a little fairy tale place, complete with cathedrals, canals, terracotta roofs and many tourists. Surprisingly (or not, maybe?), despite the movie tie-in and all the tourists, I did not see even a single reference to In Bruges whilst in Bruges.

Lunch was at Cambrinus and it was quite excellent. I can honestly say I'd never had Flemish Carbonades made with Gulden Draak and served with applesauce. I would definitely eat it again, though. I'll have to be on the lookout for that anywhere I am that serves traditional Belgian cuisine other than waffles. It would be nice to have this meal outside the presence of 8-10 extremely loud American fratboy-types that just so happened to be having a bachelor party in Bruges at the same time I was visiting. You go all the way to Bruges and end up in a place with loud Americans and a soundtrack consisting of American classics like Frank Sinatra and...Michael Bolton. Do Europeans actually love Americans that much, or maybe they just like to remind us that we gave the world Michael Bolton and it is our burden to listen to him forever.

The day in Bruges was spent trekking all over this small town, including a first-hand viewing of Michelangelo's Madonna and Childs sculpture, first-hand touching of a sacred relic supposedly containing the blood of Christ and, of course, climbing to the top of the bell tower, which I have only since found out leans about a meter off-center. The historical center of Bruges is so compact that it almost only needed an afternoon to see completely, but a chance conversation with an Englishman at t'Brugs Beertje ended up lasting well into the evening. It was nice to have one of those chance encounter experiences, especially in such a foreign place. It wouldn't have been as nice if it caused me to miss the train back to Brussels, where my points-earned hotel room awaited.

The quick train ride back to Bruxelles Nord deposited me only about 5 minutes from the hotel. It was almost midnight when I got checked in, but I was starving so I walked around a bit. Of course, I ended up on a very busy street in a very busy part of town, yet the best food option I could find was McDonalds. I had an NY Crispy even though I felt like a complete buffoon ordering it by that name. I quickly realized that most of the people around me, including the very many people in the very busy McDonalds, were annoying in the same way as drunken college students might be in the US at midnight on a Friday night. I walked around while I ate the NY Crispy, but never really got away from the noise and crowded streets.

This Trip, Part III: 23 March 2011

To sum it up, passing through immigration/customs at Heathrow is something I've done twice in the past 11 months and something that I would easily rank among my least favorite things to do. As you may know, there are three basic categories of travelers that pass through this particular area. There are those holding a passport from a EU country and those holding a passport from any other country on Earth, along with those from either category lucky enough to be "invited" to the Fast Track lane. Of course, I have since found out that to receive the Fast Track "invitation", you have to have been sitting First Class on your incoming flight. Don't get me started on that, oh wait, nevermind.

It's just uncomfortable standing in this dreary room with a really odd purple-backlit drop ceiling while herding through like cattle, not knowing who might have decided to pick up your bags after they went around the carousel for the 87th time. Then there's the whole experience of watching the EU folks and the Fast Lane folks breeze through their lines in a matter of a very few minutes, while you are still busy trying to figure out exactly how many times the line doubles-back on itself in front of you. With no other international flights coming in that terminal right then, the EU and Fast Track areas become completely empty, which is apparently the cue for most border agents to go on break at once and the remaining ones to get much more surly.

When it comes down to it, this all-encompassing line of "others" is made up of two major groups: the paranoid Americans/Australians/Canadians and the carefree Middle Easterners/Asians that make them paranoid. Then again, spending about an hour and a half packed so close to so many people, some of whom don't take personal hygiene very seriously, might be enough to make anyone paranoid. This is especially true since there's the "penalty box" along side the "others" line, that always seems to have at least one confused and/or disgruntled looking person in it. Strangely, this person also always seems to have some unique identifying trait, namely a turban, thick beard, sari, or what was a new one for me in this instance, hair curls that are most commonly associated with Orthodox Judaism.

So, after about 90 minutes of standing, leaning, squirming, yawning, staring and eye-rolling, the wait was over. Thankfully, my bag was still on the carousel when I arrived to retrieve it and I made my way to to the train. Of course I immediately went to the Heathrow Express entrance instead of the Underground/Tube entrance, just as I did last year when I was in the same position. Thankfully, memory kicked in and I made it onto the right train in the right place.

There's really only one thing that sticks out about the ride on the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to Earl's Court and the District Line from Earl's Court to Fulham Broadway: those girls. Wow. There were 4 of them, all in their early-mid 20s, wearing various combinations of wife-beater tanktops, baggy jeans, cargo pants, boxer shorts, thick belts, large belt buckles and sunglasses. In addition, they all were drinking bottles of Budweiser and Corona (remember, this is London at 2pm on a Tuesday) and reeked of cigarette smoke and earlier beers. These scents might have been worse if the apparent "leader" of this posse didn't pull a can of deodorant out of her beer-toting purse and "freshen up" right there in the middle of the train car. I guess I haven't mentioned that these girls were literally sitting directly next to me and across from me. I had been riding in that spot since I boarded and had a good place to keep my suitcase next to me, so switching seats wasn't really an option, as the train had filled up by this point. The parts of conversation that weren't completely unintelligible due to that "nasty" kind of British accent, consisted mostly of heavy profanity and/or tales of lesbianism. What it all boiled down to was an opportunity to spend about 30 minutes in a confined space with what amounted to a 4-headed female version of Kid Rock.

After getting settled in at my wonderful friends' place, albeit 3 and a half hours after landing at LHR, the only thing I had energy for was a shower and a walk. The walk's destination was Craven Cottage, home of the English Premier League's Fulham Football Club. It's not a big stadium, but it was something to see and served a good destination requiring about 30 minutes of walking in each direction. Craven Cottage turned out to be about as expected, including its immediate proximity to the Thames. A nice surprise was sunset over the Thames at Putney Bridge and the adjoining Bishop's Park, which includes Fulham Palace and the very old Fulham All Saints Church. However, once it was dark, finding a quick way out of Bishop's Park from where I was was quite a challenge and one that ultimately ended up with the jumping of a fence. It felt strangely appropriate and made for a good end of the day's adventures.

This Trip, Part II: 22-23 March 2011

There is no question that flying First Class (or whatever's equivalent) is truly a wonderful thing. The seats are bigger. The service is more attentive. The drinks are plentiful. The drinks are free. Mainly, though, the seats are bigger. This accomplishes two things: Obviously, by being bigger, there is more cushioning, which in theory makes the seat more comfortable. However, this extra size and padding also inherently positions you farther away from your neighbor than usual. This is the key advantage. Elbow space is not shared. Feet don't bump. People who like to look out the window, yet book seats on the aisle, aren't breathing on you.

The drawback of First Class is that, unless you only fly First Class, it is such a tease. You never want to fly anything but First Class after the first time. Problem is, tickets in First Class are intentionally priced at a prohibitively high level and earning enough frequent flier miles to earn status for such perks is also time consuming and, accordingly, quite expensive. Having done a fair amount of travel in 2010 for work, I have managed to get myself just barely into the realm of upgrades. Unfortunately, the only upgrades I have ever gotten are Salt Lake City to Las Vegas (a flight that covers not even the north-south length of the State of Utah), Las Vegas to Salt Lake City (ditto) and Salt Lake City to Atlanta on a red-eye (this may sound nice, but the only reason I was on this flight in the first place was because a delay in Vegas made me miss my direct connection to BNA in SLC, so I had to fly over-night to Atlanta and catch the first flight of the morning to BNA in time for work that day).

So add another trip to my First Class upgrade ledger. Nashville to Atlanta. 35 minutes in the air. 35 minutes of First Class ego-inflating. I was literally sitting in the chair longer while we were on the ground than when we were in the air. However, I suppose sitting in the First Class cabin is better than sitting at the gate in the terminal. Seriously though, First Class on a 35 minute flight is such a tease when you know you've got an 8-hour flight in Coach/Economy/Whatever coming up. I was actually not bothered when we arrived in ATL, only to find out our arrival gate was still occupied by a departing plane, so we had to sit around and wait about 15 minutes. All told, from initial boarding to final disembarking, my trip to First Class lasted about an hour and a half.

Despite being almost 11pm EDT, Terminal B at ATL still had that usual miserably crowded and noisy atmosphere that can only be expected at that airport. Thankfully Terminal E was quite quiet (yep), except for the blaring broadcast of the Hawks/Bulls game (which the Bulls won by about 749 points) on the TVs in the gates. Terminal E just doesn't have that same "Green Hills on a Saturday afternoon" feel to it as the rest of Atlanta, or excuse me, Hartsfield-Jackson International, Airport. It almost felt like something was missing.

At least the long flight was on a 767-400, which uses a passenger entry point between First Class and Coach. It would have really stung if I had to walk through First Class to get to my measly seat 17A. It soon became apparent that our 11:50pm-departing flight to Heathrow was not going to be a crowded one. A collective sigh of relief must have emanated from everyone on board (or at least in Coach) when they realized the possibility of sleeping might be more likely with 2 or 3 seats to themselves and a statistically lower probability of a screaming baby. One baby really tried to prove that statistics lie when we were taking off, but thankfully the statistics won out and the baby was not heard from again.

Sadly, on the opposite end of the age spectrum fell the man sitting directly in front of me. Actually, his assigned seat was 16B, but once he realized 16A was vacant, he became the occupant of both. Not really a problem in itself, especially since I had 17A&B to myself, but he made it an issue with his direct-impact seat movements and flatulence. Each of his seats, plus the armrest in between managed to find one of my kneecaps at least once. Unfortunately, my knees were not the part of my body that felt the most violated. The smells were awful, but mercilessly absent for much of the middle part of the flight.

Not that it mattered since I couldn't get to sleep anyway. I watched Black Swan, I watched Conviction. I played Angry Birds. I played Tiny Wings. I played Fruit Ninja. I skimmed Sky magazine. Meanwhile, after dinner was served around 1am Eastern, the entire plane had turned into one big slumber party, expect for me and the flight attendants, who kept walking by and asking if I needed anything, as if the only thing keeping me awake at that moment was my lack of a glass of water. Nothing was working, so I started playing a trivia game on the personal TV screen in front of me. That worked to an extent, as I found myself dozing off between questions. However, even still, I could only stay asleep a little while before something, usually the smelly knee-banger in 16A&B, woke me up abruptly. Then I'd realize how uncomfortable I was an not be able to get back to sleep.

Since we were flying east, the sun came up pretty fast and breakfast was served, which got the interior lights turned on and most people up moving around again. Of course, within about an hour and a half of London, my body decided it was ready for sleep. So while everyone else was waking up, I was crashing. I tried watching the Matt Damon-narrated documentary an the 2008 economic crash whose name escapes me, but that only added to the complete crash out. Once we were on the ground at LHR, I drug myself off the plane, blissfully, if not drowsily, unaware of what lay ahead.

This Trip, Part I: 22 March 2011

This trip began somewhat strangely. It was strange because it began at 8 in the evening. Well, it actually began earlier than that because it involved getting on a plane and all the legwork it takes to make that happen. Thanks to wonderful curbside service, I found myself walking into BNA at 6pm. It became immediately apparent that something was different than in my (relatively frequent) previous visits to Nashville "International" Airport.

Being the kind of guy that likes to squeeze every last drop of possible time out of a trip, I seem to always find myself at BNA at 6am (or earlier if the price was get-to-the-airport-even-earlier-than-6am great). The airport is not one of those places that is completely dead early in the morning, despite the best efforts of people like me propping up that notion by constantly booking early flights. It is very likely that you will encounter many people, a disturbingly large portion of whom are large groups of high-school-aged people, wearing flip-flops, sweatpants and in a generally (or completely) incoherent manner. These school trip groups apparently LOVE the early morning departures. Then there are the people that fill the "expert traveler" lane for ID/boarding pass check that are no more an expert traveler than the infant in the stroller they are pushing around in a havoc-wreaking manner. Regardless, it is safe to say that 6am at the airport and 6pm at the airport are two completely different things.

So, as I strode directly up to the Delta self-check-in and baggage drop counter and realized I had the entire Delta customer service universe at BNA to myself at that very moment, I said exactly that to the lady behind the counter. Being at the airport at 6pm feels a lot different than 6am. She agreed, noting that I was on Delta's last flight of the night. To say her customer service was well done and very appreciated would be an understatement. It was almost like it had been so long since she spoon-fed information to a needy customer that she didn't want to miss the chance with me. It was great. SkyMiles card won't scan? No problem, "let me pull it up for you". Your bag is over 50 pounds? No problem, "You're fine". It was weird feeling a momentary sense of sadness that such a pleasant exchange had to end.

The walk around the corner to where the zombie high-schoolers and unfortunate illiterates usually are found was also very different. Not only were neither of the aforementioned population subsets there, nobody was. Just the lane dividers and those signs. In hindsight, I wish I had walked down the lane labeled "I am a complete idiot and am only here to hold up everyone else", just for the experience, but I didn't. I went down "expert" because I wanted to actually walk down that lane and be amazed at how fast I made it through security. And I was. I couldn't resist the urge to share my 6am vs. 6pm thought with the guy checking ID/boarding pass too. Maybe I wanted to make sure that all these BNA employees knew what a stomach-churning experience it is trying to make a flight at 6am. Like they'll go tell their supervisor, "Hey boss, some guy was very happy this evening because we actually were able to do our job in a prompt and friendly manner. Maybe we should try harder to make that happen early in the morning. Maybe?"

All pipe dreams aside, walking directly up to security and not waiting felt like heaven. Like all of sudden, all that is wrong with the world was somehow right. I arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight and I was at my gate an hour and 50 minutes before my flight. I even realized I had a couple of envelopes to put in the mail before departing, only to find out the airport terminal's out-going mailbox is located "outside" or "in front of" security, depending on who you ask. Regardless, it meant leaving the "secure" part of the building, only to drop two envelopes in the box and then re-enter the secure part. Normally, this would be unheard of. Check ID and boarding pass again. Take off shoes again. Unpack laptop again. Bypass the full-body x-ray scan...not again. I felt like such a conquering hero going through security a second time with literally NO waiting until I paid a price for my good fortune in the form of the dreaded privacy-violating feet-on-the-yellow-footprints-and-hands-in-front-of-your-head thing.

It wasn't that bad. Nobody seemed to be laughing or particularly interested in whatever it was they were seeing, so I moved on through. The rest of the wait was spent calling banks and credit card companies to make sure all of my spending power would be just as powerful overseas as not. Apparently the once-routine practice of making sure your credit cards are "activated" or "approved" for use in other countries isn't so necessary anymore. These calls kept me from fully enjoying my new App Store purchases, Angry Birds: Rio, Tiny Wings and Fruit Ninja. Safe to say, I knew a week-long trip by myself might have a few instances of "down time" needing some quick, mindless entertainment.

It's about time this thing gets some action, so a quick trip to London, including an excursion to Belgium should be as good a reason as any to consume some internet space. A quick change to note, though. As you may know or have noticed, this blog is never written in first-person. You haven't seen any I's, me's, or my's in this thing before, but that now changes. Why? It's needed. This blog isn't necessarily supposed to be about what I (tada!) think, but more like general observations that could belong to any general observer. However, since there is such a small readership, chances are you (yes, you specifically) know me already and read this as if it is me saying it all to you in my typical long-winded fashion. So yeah, that's why. How about a separate entry to get this thing started? Ok, me too...