Thanksgiving. Here I am at SFO’s T2, the greatest terminal in the US to endure a two hour delay. For a start the lighting is non glare, there is a reliance on natural light, there are all sorts of restaurants, burgers to high end dining, there is a wine bar, the candy store is jammed and the announcements are quite humorous. Nearly everyone is on some sort of gadget, I see one newspaper reader and one magazine reader. The majority are watching movies on laptops or tablets or texting furiously, some are doing both at the same time. There is of course free wifi for all and the connection speed is decent to good. Oh look, there is a person reading a book, a book, one with pages,that turn, how quaint. Over there is a Best Buy / Currys vending machine and people are actually using it. External hard drives, cables, camera memory chips, iPods, phones, and digital cameras, good ones.
The delay turned into two and a half hours but it really wasn’t too helatious, sat back and watched old episodes of NCIS courtesy of Amazon, free, using a shared Prime account, free second day shipping as well! Eventually we boarded, using something called “the six hour rule” we got upgraded and had to endure the Walk of Shame through the gate fleas as we were summoned to embark first. (gate fleas, those who gather round the desk at the gate, for no apparent reason). Seats are good, kinda like armchairs, extending foot rest, reclining of course, tiny screens that pop up between us though were the heck you plug the headphones in I have no idea. There is the ubiquitous map, we are halfway up Oregon coming up on Eugene. The food has got worse, there is no meatless option which causes much amazement and the only meaty option is a rather nasty Thanksgiving turkey sandwich with pressed turkey. I am sticking to gin and tonic.
What is great about flying to Seattle is that, once airborne, it takes no time at all. None of this ten hours to Heathrow or fifteen hours to Hong Kong. The drudgery doesn’t set in, there is barely time to watch the whole of a movie, no time for a nap, it will be touch and go whether I finish this gin. It is about a ninety minute ride. But, when you factor in travel to the Airporter bus, the bus, check in, security, bag claim, ride to destination, and of course delays, we are looking at about ten hours door to door. This seems unreasonable as you can drive from San Francisco to Seattle in twelve hours. No idea how to improve it though.
We are descending, like I said its a really short flight. Next is baggage claim, a ride into town and a somewhat delayed arrival at Nat and Erin’s house on Capital Hill in the wacky side of Seattle.
See you there.
Arrived to the pumpkin pie baking. Mmm
notreallytravelling 