Our last day in the UK/Scotland began in Edinburgh with a ungodly 5
am call for bags in the hall (with a bus time of 0600). As you probably know, the European model is
that you get to the hotel, get off the coach/bus, check in and go to your room,
and (mostly) sooner or (less common) later the nice porter brings your bag(s). Maybe because a lot of the older places have
no elevators. Anyway, our plane was to
leave from Glasgow, hence the early call for bags and leaving. We
chose to put them out the night before, so we could “sleep in” until 5:30. So a bunch of bleary eyed travelers boarded
the coach for the last time and off we went to Glasgow and home.
The coach park was quite a distance from the entrance to the
terminal so we had to schlep the bags (now weighed down by purchases made in
country). Then get in a long line, out with
passports, no, nobody gave us anything, yes we packed the bags ourselves, no
they haven’t been out of our sight, okay pass through. Finally checked the bags to DCA followed by another
quarter of a mile walk to security. Remind me
to wear elastic pants next time, as removal of my belt just about results in
removal of pants, so to prevent that, it occupies one hand.
I did have the foresight to wear the Crocs, which are not only
comfortable but easily removed for the dear humorless security folk. After redressing and gathering we headed
for the gate (again decades of gates from us), and guess what? To get there you have to walk through a
seemingly endless series of “duty free” shops urging you to purchase perfumes,
liquors, clothing, accessories, etc. We
finally arrived at the gate, and still had about an hour to kill before
boarding. Eventually we stuffed
ourselves into our center and aisle seats, with MFO feeling pretty puny by
now. A last minute arrival filled the open
window seat dashing our hopes of spreading out.
She was a lovely young lady, and when she learned MFO was not feeling
well (as evidenced by coughing spells and many tissues used) she asked the
attendant if she could find another seat so MFO could have more space. I really think she did this out of sympathy,
not fear of infection. Another seat was
found so she did the best she could to spread out and snooze a little.
We settled in for the 6 hour 58 minute flight “over to
Philadelphia” according to the flight deck.
I got out my own little ear buds (that worked in one ear on the way over),
but all I got was static. Eventually I asked
the attendant and she fiddled with it with no results, and she even slipped me
the five dollar version from the airline and it still didn’t work. Apparently I
was not alone. So instead of being able to listen to classical music, I tried not to stare
at the silent TV screen above.
Again USAir felt that food should precede drink by at least
20 minutes as I watched the cart creep toward us from the front of the
jet. Was offered the choice of pasta or
chicken and given the crap that served for chicken previously, I chose the
pasta and was served a plastic enclosed lunch
Of what may have been ravioli filled with some indescribable
“stuff” and orbs of cheese (not bad) and cherry tomoatoes of uncertain texture. MFO found her little pouch
contained a special tool
After suffering through some movie (it’s like a train wreck,
you don’t want to watch, but you can’t help it) that I think was about
wrestling and other "selected shorts, we finally reached the Philadelphia airport. During the stand around waiting for the other
people to depart the aircraft, we chatted with the nice attendant who gave me the
earphones (which never did work), and she asked “where are you headed?”. Said we were headed for a little town south
of DC in Maryland. Which one? You probably never heard of it, it’s called
Lexington Park. Oh yes I have, I went to
Town Creek Elementary School! For non
local readers, that is approximately two miles (by road) from the house (and a
quarter by water). Amazing. Her father went through Test Pilot school
here. You just never know..Small world. Finally we
gathered our carryons and exited the plane to the terminal.
What followed was a walking tour that would have done
justice to any downtown tourist trek.
Because we were international we had to retrieve bags, which involved a
very long walk to the carousel, then what seemed like retracing our steps with the heavy
bags to customs, and rechecking them on to DCA.
Because we somehow left the “secure area” we had to once again go through security. One handed
again (narrowly avoiding unintentional disrobing), and finally we were able to
look for our gate for the short flight over to DCA which turned out to be in Terminal F (we were in A).
Oh, terminal F? you need to take
the shuttle sir! And where is that? Gate A1.
Fine. We noticed we were
approximately at gate A573 so once again we hiked past of what seemed miles of blank walls we
reached A1 and the little bus. Upon opening
the door to board, we were smacked in the face by what seemed like a wave of hot bath
water. Temps and humidities were paired
nicely in the nineties, a far cry from what we experienced in Scotland, at
least a 30 degree step in both.
Disgorged at the F terminal, we were mercifully only a few gates from F19 our
departure gate for DCA. This was about
two thirty or so and our commuter jaunt was to be at three forty.
What followed was a unbelievable display of the most inept handling of a
flight and gate I have ever seen.
Despite the fact that all 29 of our remaining group (some stayed, some were going to Wisconsin) had confirmed seats, we
were told that due to the amount of dead heading crew, not all would be able to
board. Our leader went ballistic. I can’t begin to describe what
turned out to be delays that resulted in taking off at five, with all of our
group and 4 empty seats (and six employees). One poor
family from Sweden that thought they were going along was left at the
gate. They said they didn’t understand
and our dear little overwhelmed gate agent said something like “it’s just the
way it is”. Fortunately our tour
director took time to explain to them that there was another flight in (now)
about twenty minutes and they would be on that.
The USAir people kept spouting stuff about “rules and regulations”
totally unsympathetic to real people. thank you so much.
We finally arrived at DCA, retrieved bags and were bussed to
our waiting cars in Mechanicsville, and the MOMSTER took us home and the
stifling heat and humidity. Despite the
late hour and exhausted and battered body from hours in fetal position on the
airplane, I celebrated the end of our journey with a DMOTRWAT and a resolution to never darken Philadelphia
airport or give USAir any money to be treated like cattle..(except for the Town
Creek lady who was nice), and raised the glass to the nice young woman who gave
MFO her seat which was beneficial to her health..
There remains a lot of stories to tell of Scotland, its
food, people and culture. I’ll relate
some of them over the next few days.
Meanwhile we’ll get the travel waves out of the brain and return to the “real”
life that was suspended by a lovely ten days in a wonderful country, rich with
history, relics of time past
And breathtaking scenery
We’ll leave food for future editions
DFD
Extra Rant Unrelated to Scotland – Sports “fans” only…
Yesterday was spent huddling in the air conditioning trying
to deny the outside conditions, and of course I tuned into the Olympics. The first thing I saw was the final of a
basketball game between Russia and Spain.
It was a close game coming right down to the end. But, the announcers treated it as just a
preliminary to the "USA" game. They then proceede to
wax eloquent about the previous game with Nigeria. “A spectacular display of basketball!” “record breaking performance!” Apparently the "USA" team rolled
up an astonishing 156 points, winning by some 80 points against an obviously overmatched Nigerian team, giddly recounting
how many points LeBron, and “Mello” made showing clips of multiple uncontested threes (kind of like shooting practice). Lauding the "magnificant performance" of the “USA Team”. Great basketball!! Maybe they can find an elementary school team
to play and get even more points! Last I checked, the team is made up of the
same spoiled, egotistical NBA players that only care about how much money they
make, creating circuses out of their signing, selling their talents to the
highest bidder, or demanding to be traded where THEY want to go, making sure
they make one more dollar than the next guy.
Well guess what LeBron (et. al), I don’t think you represent anything more than
yourself, and your values don’t reflect true America, and you certainly don’t
represent me. Have fun.
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