I think that long distance air travel with multiple flights is like childbirth, (or so I've been told by an authority in the subject). You are programmed to forget the pain and suffering so you'll do it again.
We got home Wednesday night and were picked up at the airport by a good friend who overlooked our grumpiness and kindly took us home. Coming back was relatively easy; 3 flights over 30 hours with 4 hours of sleep mixed in. We had both picked up Irish colds and so we doped up with nasal spray, cough drops, antibiotics and pockets full of tissues so we wouldn't completely gross out our seat mates.
We had flights up to 2 hours late each direction, the usual security hassles, poorly designed airports, noise, and people, masses of them crammed into the same little space, all of them seemingly in a hurry to get somewhere. I especially felt for the young families or single parents traveling through the maelstrom with a couple of toddlers, or even more frightening, an infant. Better them than us, we thought.
London/Heathrow Airport is a force of nature. Five terminals, all of them dwarfing good old familiar Portland International, underground trains between the terminals, and more jumbo jets than I would have thought possible in the world. The new Airbus 380s, complete double-deckers are so big it's amazing to me that they fly as well as they do. They make the rows of 747s look like Piper Cubs.
My late mother loved airports and watching people, particularly in a crossroads like Heathrow. I guess I've inherited that affection for watching crowds. She was very fond of the San Francisco International Airport, the kind of crossroads that Heathrow is. She said she tried to imagine who these people were in their strange dress, speaking peculiar sounding dialects of dozens of languages. Madlynn and I sat in a coffee shop and lingered over our tea for a long time watching the crowds. Talk about a melting pot. We saw every shade of human being imaginable in every sort of garb found on the planet. The only thing I didn't see was an Alaskan native in seal skin parka, but I suspect if you sat there long enough, one would pass by. The logistics of running a place like Heathrow must be mind-boggling. I have no idea how many travelers pass through the place in one 24 hour period, but it must be immense.
From our coffee shop window, we could see several runways, all of them in use continuously. A steady stream of aircraft landed at one runway near us and I noticed we could see their landing lights winking on, far out on their approach. At one point, I counted 7 aircraft all in a line, headed for the same runway, lined up like dairy cows headed into my Uncle Hugh's milking barn at Coquille. Instead of names, they had numbers; United 456, British 712, Dubai 847, Emirates 116. One by one they landed, turned off the runway, and headed to the jetways where they hooked up to discharge their contents, just like the cows connecting to the milking machine.
It was sweet to see the familiar Cascade volcanoes appear in the still, clear Oregon evening light as we made our descent into Portland. Our jet slid by majestic Mt. Hood close enough to count the snowballs on the glaciers. I admit I breathed a huge sigh of relief when our Alaska pilot greased that 737 onto the runway. It's great to go places, but it's also a wonderful feeling to return to this place we call home.
Slainte tha
We got home Wednesday night and were picked up at the airport by a good friend who overlooked our grumpiness and kindly took us home. Coming back was relatively easy; 3 flights over 30 hours with 4 hours of sleep mixed in. We had both picked up Irish colds and so we doped up with nasal spray, cough drops, antibiotics and pockets full of tissues so we wouldn't completely gross out our seat mates.
We had flights up to 2 hours late each direction, the usual security hassles, poorly designed airports, noise, and people, masses of them crammed into the same little space, all of them seemingly in a hurry to get somewhere. I especially felt for the young families or single parents traveling through the maelstrom with a couple of toddlers, or even more frightening, an infant. Better them than us, we thought.
London/Heathrow Airport is a force of nature. Five terminals, all of them dwarfing good old familiar Portland International, underground trains between the terminals, and more jumbo jets than I would have thought possible in the world. The new Airbus 380s, complete double-deckers are so big it's amazing to me that they fly as well as they do. They make the rows of 747s look like Piper Cubs.
My late mother loved airports and watching people, particularly in a crossroads like Heathrow. I guess I've inherited that affection for watching crowds. She was very fond of the San Francisco International Airport, the kind of crossroads that Heathrow is. She said she tried to imagine who these people were in their strange dress, speaking peculiar sounding dialects of dozens of languages. Madlynn and I sat in a coffee shop and lingered over our tea for a long time watching the crowds. Talk about a melting pot. We saw every shade of human being imaginable in every sort of garb found on the planet. The only thing I didn't see was an Alaskan native in seal skin parka, but I suspect if you sat there long enough, one would pass by. The logistics of running a place like Heathrow must be mind-boggling. I have no idea how many travelers pass through the place in one 24 hour period, but it must be immense.
From our coffee shop window, we could see several runways, all of them in use continuously. A steady stream of aircraft landed at one runway near us and I noticed we could see their landing lights winking on, far out on their approach. At one point, I counted 7 aircraft all in a line, headed for the same runway, lined up like dairy cows headed into my Uncle Hugh's milking barn at Coquille. Instead of names, they had numbers; United 456, British 712, Dubai 847, Emirates 116. One by one they landed, turned off the runway, and headed to the jetways where they hooked up to discharge their contents, just like the cows connecting to the milking machine.
It was sweet to see the familiar Cascade volcanoes appear in the still, clear Oregon evening light as we made our descent into Portland. Our jet slid by majestic Mt. Hood close enough to count the snowballs on the glaciers. I admit I breathed a huge sigh of relief when our Alaska pilot greased that 737 onto the runway. It's great to go places, but it's also a wonderful feeling to return to this place we call home.
Slainte tha