This first post finds me safely ensconsed in the home of Nadya, Mark and Andrei in Somerville MA (Boston). They are most wonderful hosts.
The journey here has been long but relatively simple. It started at around 5am GMT on the 22nd of January when I got up to start making my way to the USA.
The Glibshaft had fallen out of the wishbracket or something, completely disabling it on a wet and windy single track road somewhere between Auchenblae and Durris.
A swift logistical recalculation caused me to throw my worldly belongings into my car and rush to pick James up and rush to the airport so he could drive my car back home and heroically rescue himself.
We still arrived at the airport around 20 minutes before I could check my bags in.
Before taking off, we had to spend around 45mins being de-iced. I was informed during the safety demonstration by the man sitting next to me that if I wasn't able to operate the emergency exit and jump out in the event of a crash, that he would gladly trample me. His wife very kindly explained that he had had a bad experience once during offshore helicopter training.
So, we took off nearly an hour late, the flight time is only just over an hour and we had to hold over Heathrow for a little while. The time between landing from Aberdeen and taking off for Boston was scheduled to be around an hour and a half.
Upon landing at Heathrow, there was an announcement over the Tannoy that 'if you are travelling onwards to Boston, someone will meet you to assist at the top of the airbridge'. My new celebrity status was confirmed by a nice lady who had a placard with my name on it and a big smile as she said 'follow me'. Trampling man, his good lady wife and around 10 other travellers headed for the Dolomites to go Skiing gave me a small round of applause and shouted some encouragement.
Smiling lady and I ran to the front of several very large ques to be ushered straight through and I thanked her profusely as we got to a bus, she wished me a pleasant onward journey.
The bus took me to a waiting 777 with a load of other passengers. I got on and then it took off about 20mins later. From my experience as a baggage handling operative, I was fairly sure that my bags would not have made the transfer.
The lady sitting next to me on this flight was wearing Tommy Hilfiger wellies. I wasn't aware such a thing existed, and was quite surprised that they could be deemed suitable footwear for transatlantic travel. She didn't wear them for most of the flight and I had to stop myself several times from launching into a rendition of Billy Connolly's Welly Boot Song that my grandfather would have been proud of.
We landed (tunelessly) at Boston Logan International safely and without incident. Immigration formalities complete, including slightly sickening 'Welcome to United States' videos, I was met with smiling faces by friends of my sister: Nadya and Mark, who took me to their home.
We performed a short tour of Boston in the car, ate an evening meal and I retired to bed at around 9pm local time. Or 2am Aberdeen time.
Totally loving the blog bro!
ReplyDeleteTake it easy and I'll catch you when you return! Shout me if you want to pick me up from the side of the road on my way to pick you up! I'm sure there's a grammatical or logistical issue with that last statement but I'm not going to amend that now, or, I dare say, ever.