The Man writes...at last Albaniana has allowed me to blog from here in California. I think she was worried that rather than tell you about my week in the sun I would bore you about the journey. As if!But what a journey it was! Albany to the West Coast took 21 hours. You might be thinking it is quicker from London. You might be right.
The cause was a little bit of weather and a missed connection in Chicago. Here the only option was to join a line to be re-booked: three agents dealing with a line of 117 people.(Yes, I counted. I'm strange that way).
For some unfathomable reason this part of air travel doesn't seem to have changed in the 20 years since I first flew. And yet - nearly everyone in line had a mobile phone; a large proportion had laptops; most would be competent to operate a touch screen. Given a tiny bit of information, a few terminals and wi-fi, most passengers could have re-booked themselves.
After further delays I finally got to my hotel room at 4am, only to get up at 7.
Still it is refreshing to see palm trees, trams, and wide boulevards in the dazzling sunlight, and enjoy temperatures in the 60s.Of course, whenever I mentioned my trip everybody (well, strictly speaking every adult male) asked with faux innocence: "Do you know the way?"
I only hope they've got it out of their system.
Burt Bacharach's royalty payments obviously didn't stretch as far as buying a map. Apart from not knowing his way round Southern California, he also managed to somehow end up "24 hours from Tulsa".
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm glad you've got your travel story out of your system, my dearest! Look forward to seeing you back here in the snow where you belong - weather and transport permitting, of course.
ReplyDeleteI suspect anonymous has spent some boring nights in San Jose hotel rooms googling Burt Bacharach lyrics?
ReplyDeleteDon't think google had started the last time I was in a San Jose hotel room. But I will confess to having tried to work out where one could be in the US to be 24 hours from Tulsa....
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