Saturday, September 16, 2006

Flight Out


These signs were all over the Terminal One airport on our way out

As some may have predicted I didn't get any sleep between the balmy beach club and the flight. By the time I got home it was around 2:00-2:30pm. That gave me about two hours to sleep and leave to get to Andrew's, get a ride up to Josie's in Woodbridge, then split an airport cab to the airport. We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before the flight. The airport officials recommend 3 hours before the flight thanks to all the anti-terrorism checks put into place.


My transport across the pond

The flight itself was seven hours. For the most part I slept through most of it waking up to be fed the bordering on sub-standard airline food. Why is it that the packaged food tastes so crappy? Is this true on all airlines? I remember eating chocolate on a KLM flight that was amazing.


The first meal


Looking out the plane window


Meal two - a tiny tub of ice cream


Meal three - actually this wasn't too bad.


The bribe snack


Didn't know Hethrow was that old

Upon arriving in London we made a bee line for our hotels. Andrew and Josie had a hotel about 10 minutes walk away from mine. I've always wondered what a cheap hotel would look like. Would there be vermin crawling around? Would I have access to plugs? Would there be a roof?

My low expectations were exceeded when I got to the cramped hotel. A cash deposit of the full amount was required up front plus a £10 deposit for the hotel key. The person at the check in seemed new and didn't really seem to know anything about the functioning of the hotel in general.

When I asked about my media badge that was supposed to be mailed to me she just gave me a blank look. I was too tired to follow up on all the fashion week details and since I had an extra day Sunday) before the actual fashion week started I decided to talk to the hotel manager after I woke up.

Opening the door to my room I immediately noticed how hot and stuffy it was. Hot and Stuffy and the door was wide open with the window being open. Was that pee I was smelling? The room had a tinyfluorescentt light on the wall and a single bare lightbulb on the ceiling. I initially turned on the single light bulb and noticed marks on the wall that looked like roach squash remains.

I turned off the light and turned on the smallfluorescentt light. After packing my luggage into the Ikea likearmoirer I when to lie down. Crap! There was a spring jutting out of the mattress into my back. At least it was on the side of the bed. Was that a train that just rumbled by?


The extra low discount room for only £25 a night

3 comments:

theotherbear said...

I've always loved airplane food. Although the last few years it just isn't the same. Either they've gotten scabby and started to make meals that cost less, or my tastes have matured. Or both.

BagelHot said...

Airplane food is kind of like TV dinners. Way back when, pre-microwavable, the dinners actually where a meal in size and in taste. Since the advent of the microwave the meals have gotten tiny and taste like crap.

Anonymous said...

The best airline food I've ever had was on my trip from Tokyo to Los Angeles on Koren Airlines. They gave me choice of sushi or a traditional Korean meal (including yummy kimchi)or steak. They also provided the best snacks, gave you a hot towel to freshen up before landing, gave me a pillow for my head & for under my feet and the topper was that they said thank you even after they were doing something for me.

Someone once said that Singapore Airlines is better but I just can't believe it.