Flying to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.
Something many of us would love to do.
Overcast And Rainy
The problem with living in two countries is that the climate between the two homes may be very different. Whilst the weather in Switzerland is warm and sunny in England it’s cold and dreary. It’s gray. I was hoping that the weather in Switzerland would break the day I flew back to London so that the transition would not feel as bad but it backfired. What I had wanted is a cooler rainy day that would be enough to make me indifferent to the trip. This backfired as severe storms delayed quite a few of the flights.
As a result of these two or three flights were delayed and waiting in the terminal and everyone was sitting where they could. I found a comfortable place against a wall. At first, I saw that 6 out of 12 flights were delayed due to météo/weather and then 5 of 12. Finally, my flight was delayed by 40 minutes which is not that bad when you’re as used to travel as I am.
It’s amusing to watch people as they wait to travel. Young children are tired, falling asleep whilst others are complaining about the delay. Yet more got up and stood for over fourty minutes queuing for a plane that had not even arrived in the gate yet. I was living in luxury though. Two mobile phones, a charged iPhone, and my MacBook pro with over 4hrs of battery life. I twittered jokingly that it’s a 40-minute delay with four hours of entertainment.
It was an opportunity to work on the showreel. One of the beauties of the machine I use is the battery life. I’ve been doing some testing whilst at home and I’m quite happy with the results. I’ll go into more detail in another section of the website.
Having the level of familiarity I have with Geneva airport I’m more observant, knowing the procedures from months spent there. As I felt that people could start boarding I got up and was by the second cashier. Whilst everyone queued at one deck I saw the second one so of course, I took advantage of this, being the first one to go through although I had been one of the people who had not been standing anxiously. That’s an advantage of frequent flying.
Aboard the plane, I started to wonder something. Is it worse to be stuck with children who can talk or babies that cry? I think that talking children are worse. Some of them are not very articulate and others play with words and songs. It wasn’t that bad luckily.
Stewardesses are amusing because sometimes you see them get anxious. One of them saw some gormless passengers blocking the aisle and sounded stressed as she asked them to move in so that others could board the plane due to the short flight slot the aircraft had been allocated. In the end, we took off without much delay and the rest of the flight went well.
Had to take the Stansted express to seven sisters and from there caught a bus to get home due to the tube lines closing, no problem though.
Now it’s back to London life and getting on with my career.
Before waking up
Before waking up I found myself catching a plane to an airport before catching a small private plane to somewhere in the mountains where I went skiing. I was going home but for some reason I was late.
I was telling myself that I had to get back to one place to get my luggage before going home before realising that I didn’t. I decided to rush for the plane, dropped by my room, and threw a cursive look before running back to the small private plane, asking whether I was on the first flight before the plane took off.
For some reason, it had to taxi along some mountain roads and almost hit some bowling balls on the tarmac. Quite a confusing dream to have had.
I usually have strange dreams as summer starts trying to get in through the curtains. It’ss the fourth or fifth day of sunshine in sunny London.
Another day of sitting in the sun whilst waiting for night to fall to continue working on the dissertation.
Last night I spent at least an hour going through some of my notes. Highlighting relevant bits and thinking about how to structure the introduction. Now it’s another 15 days of such effort or more.
The deadline is still over a month away but it’s better to do as much as possible now to relax afterward… or at least not panic.
Airport security can be fun
When you fly a lot you get used to the antics of airport security. Sometimes you see people get angry and flustered by their stuff being searched. Sometimes I’ve felt that way as well.
Today was amusing. My bag went through the x ray machine and since it was so full of books dvd and more they wanted to look inside. No one else was passing through at the time so I joked about how they had to keep busy. One of them joked about having to find something to confiscate to keep himself entertained. Shame I had nothing of interest.
I chatted about the DVD in my bag and about a series related to the first one and it was generaly quite friendly.
Hey, when you’ve flown five times in two months you’re bound to be more relaxed about certain aspects, especially when you’re in no rush because you gave yourself enough time.
I’m so happy not to need to fly in the next few days
There’s some great news and some bad news. The great news is that the English government says it managed to prevent a series of terrorist attacks within the last twenty four hours. What’s not so great is that many people end up stranded at various airports around the world. Apparently over 200 flights and 200,000 people are affected in the UK alone with repercussions around the world.
For those who are already on the spot this was good news since it means they’re forced to extend their holidays by a day or two. For those who were stranded at the airport it’s the nightmare scenario we’d all hate to experience. We’ve all known delays but in this circumstance we’re talking about hours of delay.
I hope that the idea of preventing people taking laptops and other devices on planes is not realised as I’d hate to be forced to put my electronics in the luggage hold as I know how battered it would be.