This article is a bit of an experiment. These are notes I made during my first flight overseas. I have transcribed the notes exactly as I wrote them at the time. Apart from expanding my shorthand, I have done nothing to change the grammatical structure or the flow of ideas. This may make the article unreadable, but it is a true and honest account of my thoughts and feelings at the time. As I said, it's an experiment. I would appreciate your feedback. Thanks.
You might want to read my essay "Live . . . In Concert", which is a kind of prelude to my trip.
Friday. 7:45. Bus 10 minutes late. Lucky I built in contingency.
8:15. Train 5 minutes late. Contingency now used up. Uh-oh. Panic.
8:40. On the airport line. Most people left the train already. Beautiful sunshine. Nerves now. Fingers tingling. Chest tight. Don't know what to do. Don't even know what the airport will look like. Panic.
Airport.
Terminal exit. Keep to right.
Help, I don't even know what my right is.
Keep calm. Stupid people do this every day. Act like you own the place.
Formalities. Bleh. Easy.
Don't know where to go. Do what I always do: walk round very fast until I find something.
I can see a plane. Is that it??? It's so small. I've been in bigger busses.
Can't get a window seat. Sad.
Beautiful sunshine.
Airport announcers. You can understand them. Why don't rail announcers speak like that?
EEK. Flight delayed indefinitely. Technical problem. Next announcement at 10am. That's ok, huge delay built in at Heathrow.
Everything will be fine.
Lose and win
Pictured within.
Take a photo of the plane before it blows up. Can only see it through glass though, and too much sunlight. Sad.
My world is now very small. One room and two corridors.
Hot.
Everybody is on the phone. Nobody seems annoyed or surprised. Strong smell of coffee. Mmmmm.
Heat haze behind the plane. The engines are working. Beautiful. Wow. When a big one takes off, it's loud. Ours isn't that big. Airbus 319. I think. G-EUPO. If it ever gets fixed.
One hour. Haven't stopped pacing yet. How can people just sit down? Too many people. Can't walk and write.
They towed away G-EUPO. Not a good sign. It needs a replacement part. We have to get a different flight. Queue here for information.
Long queue.
Still queuing.
Return to boarding gate, your plane is leaving after all. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Ok. I'm calm.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Well, G-EUPO is back at gate 4. I hope the broken part isn't vital. More waiting. Too many people. Delay so far: 60 minutes.
1 hour 35 minutes left to make the connection. No problem.
Still pacing. People are watching me. Yes well I think you're weird for sitting down, ok?
There's always a loud arrogant man complaining to the wrong people.
Loud arrogant man: "It's going to cost British Airways a lot of money if I miss my connecting flight."
Attendant: "I'm sure it is but they just sent us down to serve the coffee."
He didn't have any coffee.
In the plane. At last. It's really small. It's like a bus. But more round. There's a useful card in the seat pocket, full of reassuring diagrams of aircraft crashing. Great.
Ha. I just snapped my pencil lead. I'm not nervous. Honest.
There's a life vest under my seat. I can see out of the window a bit. I wish I had a window seat. The woman in the window seat has too much perfume.
Acceleration. Nobody told me about the acceleration. Everybody said "oh there will be turbulence". Nobody said "acceleration". Too cool.
The ground is at a funny angle. I feel light headed. Everything tiny. I recognise everything. Six bridges. The sea. Oh, I can see the sea. But that's 15 miles away!
There is writing on the wing. It says "do not walk outside this area". Duh! As if!
White. Flying through clouds. Blue. Above the clouds. OMG it's so beautiful. People are asleep. How can people be asleep? They are serving lunch. I don't want to eat lunch I want to look out of the window and write. It's so beautiful. I don't ever want to land.
Turbulence. Cool.
27,000 feet. That's like 5 miles. I want to see it better. I want to be Superman.
My ears keep popping. Have to equalise. It's not quite like diving. It's not as steady. Up, down, equalise. Up, down. How turbulent is turbulence? How far is each up and each down?
Break in the clouds. Roads. Towns. Could be anywhere. Not part of my world. Ground is for wimps.
Scavenging souvenirs. Salt. Pepper. Sugar. Refreshing tissue.
Mmmm coffee. Um, no. Yuck. Heh.
Landing in 10 minutes.
Landing: the plane rocks from side to side in the way that a runway doesn't. Seems like a bad idea. Didn't anyone tell the pilot that runways are flat and immobile?
Wow, landings are scary. You can't sleep through a landing. I like clouds better than I like landings.
Taxiing. Taxiing forever. (How do you spell taxiing?) International airports are six miles wide. Somebody should tell the pilot that if he lands closer to the terminal he wouldn't have to taxi so much.
Is that it?
How do I find a connection to Sweden?
Read Part Two if you can possibly stand any more!
© 2000 by David Meadows. All rights reserved. 14 October 2000