Bacon Edition

3am Boston time and its still cold as heck, another quick snooze before the shuttle to the airport and the delights of the TSA who although slow where a friendly, humorous bunch, perhaps they put something in their tea to make them happy.

Anyway doing it American style means getting to the airport later and being at the gate just before boarding starts . seat 3 A Is the front of the plane with the bulkhead again, being only average height it gives plenty of room to kick back and relax
AA dish out 10 inch Galaxy tabs and Bose headphones on some routes, including this one, the tab has films, games, books and magazines on it so I contented myself with reading a few home and food magazines, one of which is the good food “Bacon edition” only in America huh? Big pillow, soft quilt, seat that reclines from the base so that you don’t lean onto the person behind, 

Breakfast: well it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, salsa with your omelette and sausage at 8am is an unusual breakfast. Midday is a portion of sorbet and an aniseed biscotti, from the colour of the sorbet it could have been orange or peach but sweet and fruity is the best description I can give of the taste.
One of the things I like best about flying cross country is that there below you is the whole of a geography lesson,  towns grown up along rivers, meandering into ox bow lakes, snow covered mountains jutting into the sky , the system of crop growing that makes the countryside look like a patchwork quilt of circles squares and stripes, one of these days I am going to make a quilt based on what I have seen from 30,000 feet.

LAX is hot and mad, too hot for someone dressed for Boston, I retreated to the Admirals Club for a soda and a rest, Theres one of those things that dispenses cereals in hotels full of white chocolate coated pretzels, I wonder how many returns to the dispenser would be considered rude!!! A 7 Hour layover turned into a 5 hour by the delays and problems getting onto the gate after we landed. Time ticks incessantly backwards from getting up 3 am Boston the day will last 30 hours Take off to HNL is at 6.05pm or rather 2.05am UK time

Landing like a chicken

Does this look like the international airport of a European capital city???

No, thought not, everything I like about Luxembourg seems to be reflected in their airport, Clean, bright multi lingual and not many people!      Anyway, LUX was a calm, experience, imagine that, you don’t have to fight your way to the queue, I didn’t use the lounge at LUX, the normal departures area was nice and bright and I am a hot person, it only takes a couple of degrees above jumper weather and I am too hot, so I stayed out in the cool area. Dont remember the Deli plate featuring as a breakfast from BRU but I stand to be corrected on this one.

The trauma of connecting through T1 isnt actually a trauma, if you want to go landside I think it is actually quicker to go through T1 immigration, down to the HEx and over to T5. I am a “go landside” person, I like a puff of fresh air between flights, unless its in MIA or MCO when nothing would drag me the wrong side of security.

737s land like chickens,  other types land like normal aircraft but watching them the 737 definitely lands like a chicken, granted chickens only fly a few feet at a time but the landing technique is the same.

I am in the lounge at T5 with a good view of the runway, the lunchtime gloops have given way to cake… Raspberry and almond or chocolate, I had to take one for the team and try both and the conclusion is stick to the raspberry and almond.

I could have predicted that it would be a B gate departure but I got caught up with eating and drinking in the Galleries South lounge, when I finally made the trip over to the B gates, I was lucky enough to walk straight onto the plane…and straight into a glass of Champagne- that resolution didn’t last long.

 Now, I hate wine, its one of those things like soup or yoghurt that has no purpose, I appreciate that the entire Roman empire couldn’t have been wrong in their devotion to bringing the vine to ancient Britain but to me, its just a waste of a clean glass. The sole exception to this is Champagne, this has a purpose..its fizzy and sharp and the more you drink the happier you get.

  BA have really gone to town on the Umami taste, Chicken Caesar salad with sun dried tomatoes, the lovely anchovies, the mature Parmesan, mmm. The guy in the next seat is disappointed with his Cod and mustard mash, I am disappointed with the pink Champagne he said was nice,  but he wins my admiration when he told me that not only was he one of the rare breed who had been in the loo on landing but it was a landing into Kai Tak .

Boston immigration report: joined queue 18.35 collected bag 19.05

Boston is cccold, just as well I packed that coat after all, but what the heck is it making my case so heavy? 

Night night 

Lager and the world's most comfortable bed

 Everything set, drove to Heathrow terminal 1 car park, only to find that the parking company we have used for years and found really reliable have decided that I should be met at terminal 5, despite me calling them the day before to confirm T1 on the outbound and T5 on the inbound.
Hmm Dunc would have known where to go, drive to T5 and take the HEx back easy, unless you have never driven through T1-3 before, anyway a few passes of the tunnel and all was solved apart from lugging the stupid case to T1 I knew that checked bag was going to be trouble.

T1 isnt much to shout about, a confusing mass of humanity like a scene from War of the worlds, The International lounge seems out of all proportion to the rest of the facilities,  many tunnels later I was on board and settled down.
 Afternoon tea of 3 finger sandwiches, a scone with cream and jam and a solid looking thing which was labelled as a chocolate and orange cake-Dont BA know I hate chocolate and fruit? apparently not.
Settled on lager as the wimp version  of alcohol.........
A few tears on takeoff as I was not sharing the trip with Dunc but ,who knew, BA have their own brand of tissues for just such an occasion.

LUX airport is clean, calm, short walking distances, on the way out I passed 3 customs officers giving peoples bags the full check, for an airport this quiet I suppose they need to take advantage of pax passing through before the long wait for another flight!

The reasoning behind doing the LHR-LUX leg a day earlier was that a same day turnround would have involved leaving LHR at some ungodly hour in the morning, having slept in a hotel the night before. This way I am still sleeping in a hotel but in LUX in mainland Europe where the hotel prices are cheap and the rooms are small.
The Ibis isnt glamorous, the room looked like the unfinished bedroom set up from an Ikea store, the one thing it does have though is the most comfortable bed in the world, laid down for a rest and SPLAT I was run over by the sleepy truck, opened my eyes briefly to see it was dark and back to sleep until 6.30am (5.30 am UK time) well thats all the good intentions about working on the laptop and watching Eastenders gone.

Its not until I looked up the time in Hawaii that I realised how far it actually is I know for every 1 degree you go west the time is 4 mins earlier but crikey, Hawaii is 12 hours behind here, thats not a minor inconvenience or a bit of jet lag thats major time shift. I can stay up til 3 am without much effort so that means I will be running out of steam at 3pm there. Lisa's house is still 7 hours ahead of Hawaii !! At least she isnt going to think I am a party pooper this time.

The perils of Long haul alcohol

Seats chosen, meals chosen (nice touch AA)  Gogo passes purchased in the hope that the wifi is working inflight,
 I only drink alcohol above 10,000ft so its a few days of boozing for me! trouble is the combination of airline food and alcohol usually ends up giving me heartburn, but I persist in trying to find the perfect ratio. The motion of the plane disguises the extent of your intoxication until you need to reconnect your feet with the floor. More than once I have been grateful that there is a handrail on the stairwell on the U/D of a 747 as I wobble my way down the back trying to look like I have some control of my limbs. I should have learned by now that when it comes to alcohol I am a bit of a lightweight.
Sticking to coffee is probably the order of day, coffee is unique in that when offered it you can say "of course I need coffee, I'm a teacher" and get double servings . Imagine saying "of course I need alcohol I am a banker" and getting double issue, actually the teacher thing would probably work with alcohol, valium, ice cream, chocolate....
I shared the front row of VS PE with a fellow teacher a few years ago, like me, she had shoved her school planner in her bag and bolted for the airport on a Friday night. Teachers are a cooperative bunch, one gets up to use the facilities and the other one goes as well so as not to cause disturbance later on. We taught similar subjects so the chat was partly about that: Up until the after dinner drinks which is when I discovered that the "teacher" thing does work with alcohol, especially since VS served Baileys from the bottle,and a long flight time remaining. Eventually I had to concede defeat as I knew not feeling your teeth isnt a good sign!. She caught a taxi to meet her husband and I spent a reasonable night sleeping on the floor at EWR for a 5 am flight no doubt assisted by the volume of Baileys.

Socks and Sandals
Yes,I know you dont wear socks and sandals, I have traumatic memories of my father wearing his shorts, handknitted woollen socks and his sandals when I was s child. The sole exception to this is when you have a new pair you need to break in quickly then you  wear them around the house, sandals (well trainer sandals) are now fine and comfortable and ready for my days yomping around Hawaii on the tours I booked.
The tours are all by one company called Oahu Nature tours, there is a trip round the North shore one day, a hike to a waterfall and a trip round the island, Pineapple plantation, Macadamia nut plantation , loads to see. Up until I found the tours I was resigned to Hawaii being like some other parts of the US, all hype, I have watched Dog the Bounty hunter, I know how it looks, I am not expecting it to be like the Elvis in Hawaii films but it seems it might be something to look forward to.....

2 Sleeps to go

Not that we ever used the "sleeps" countdown in our family but you know what I mean!
 This is the route in more visual form, not a TP run in the purest sense as I am actually headed somewhere but more of a convoluted routing, a money saving routing as it turns out, saving over £2k on the direct route LHR-PHL

It seems I am a week late,well, a week later than the majority of TP runners reporting on FT, They may have seen the best of Hawaii, I am there for 3 days and the forecast is for rain and wind.
Not that its going to be easy to pack when the forecast temperatures for my 2 destinations are 20C apart, I may rethink my decision to go hand luggage only. Traveling on your own a checked bag is more of a liability, penalties and hysteria caused by leaving a bag for a split second are worse than if you had abandoned your own child.
  Mindful of the SNAFUs that have afflicted other runners in the last week or so I have a huge margin between flights. At its shortest a connection in a US airport involves getting off the plane at one gate, walking 20 yards to another gate and joining another queue to get on the next flight. At its longest it can involve a delayed flight, diverted to an international terminal, being felt all over by the TSA and rushing to the gate only to miss the flight.

I need to throw the cats out of my case, and get packing, Dunc was a last minute packer but I am not paying a tribute to his way of traveling, just disorganised!

All set

  It's with all this in mind that I started to plan a trip to give me time to reflect on the struggles of the last 12 months, to regain some perspective and a baptism of fire for my new life as a solo traveler. I did fly to the US a few times a year on my own anyway so I am not a complete novice at this.

I am a bit nervous about leaving the pets for 2 weeks, the cats were fairly disturbed by the last 3 weeks of Dunc's life, a continuous stream of carers 3 times a day, hospice nurse, Dr, and friends and relatives, compared to our normally quiet and peaceful life it must have been a trauma for them. 2 of them just ran and hid upstairs but the 19year old blind and deaf cat was just thoroughly confused by the new variety of people, the room being rearranged for the hospital bed, at one stage he correctly identified the catheter drain as a bag of pee and tiddled beside it. Since then there has been a battle for the sole lap to sit on and for my attention.
  Obviously with it being Easter the chickens are getting to the stage where they start thinking "wow, look at the tail feathers on that"  they could do with a cockerel to keep them happy but I am not having some big randy bird corrupting my girls, not in my garden. So hormones rule in the garden, lots of squabbling and pecking, changes of friendship groups and one of them even went for the cat when she dared to get too close. Actually come to think of it it's the same as teaching teenagers, must remember to watch them next spring term to see if the girls are more trouble that time of year, some girls can be trouble any time of year, I know, I was a stroppy teenager at school too.

Anyway, the trip
Flying, sightseeing and a visit to my friend in New Jersey were priorities, with some good fares available for ex EU trips across the Atlantic I was obviously not taking the direct route, having lost the GC due to not flying for a year I would like to get it back and see somewhere outside the airport.
Finally settled on LHR-LUX-LHR-BOS-LAX-HNL   -LAX-MIA-PHL for the outward and PHL-CLT-ATL-LHR-BRU-LHR for in the inward, why take 2 flights when you can take 12. Why settle for 280TP when you can have 1330.

Dunc would have been impressed, Dunc would have been on it with me, I am taking some of his ashes for my friends garden, he was cremated with his passport in his pocket so he is all set to go.
We are all set to go

Planning for a new future

Travel has been a hobby of ours since I "cured" myself of my fear of flying, I was watching a programme on Anne Proulx and writing That old ace in the hole and the countryside looked so amazing and vast and interesting that I knew I could get over my 20 odd year self imposed grounding and get onto a plane.

Over the last 10 years we have visited places we could have only dreamed of, seen sights I never imagined I would see toured countries and islands, hours spent on planes. All with Dunc, my husband of 26 years and sometimes with Al, my son. 
Dunc was a road warrior of the "hard as nails" variety, thought nothing of driving to the other end of the country for a day and still picking me up from parents evening on his way home. He caused a great deal of surprise at a FT do in Canary wharf when telling someone he was on his way home from Aberdeen and had called to collect me, when asked which flight he was on he revealed he had just driven from Aberdeen, completely alien to a FT audience.

Life turned on a sixpence on the 8th of March 2013 with the diagnosis of Dunc's brain tumour, a vicious, nasty beast that robbed him of his ability to drive, and  fly in an instant..Dunc fought the tumour with everything he and the medical profession could but the beast was too strong and he battled it to a draw a year and 2 days after diagnosis.

 It is up to me now to live life for the both of us, to travel to all the places we should have gone to, to have all the experiences we should have had as a couple. Life as a solo traveler isnt going to be easy I know but unless I get out there I will end up with just me and the cats sat at home watching the latest on who killed Lucy Beale for entertainment.