What matters most is the feeling you get when you're hypnotized

[austin_dern]

We had breakfast our last morning in the hotel's restaurant. We had forgotten how good their buffet breakfast was, until we went to it the day before. I may have overdone it eating Weetabix but it just feels so like a thing to do while in England as long as jacket potatoes and beans on toast aren't happening.

bunny_hugger's uncle wouldn't be able to drive us to the airport, as he had probate court to get to. That's all right. We made our way through the Underground to Heathrow Airport, which we'd done before. Although this time since we were taking Air Canada we had to take a different and rather longer path to get from check-in to the actual gate. In fact, we were supposed to not start going to the gate until they gave us a half-hour warning; they just wanted us to be ... around ... somewhere else.

We did get put in an extremely slow X-ray screening line. I know everyone complains they're in the slow line, but I watched the many people getting through their screening while we waited, motionless. I'm not sure our screener had ever gotten to play with X-ray machines before.

Also in the long twisting path to get to our gate, we got onto an elevator, pressed the button for the other spot, and saw the other door open without the cab moving at all. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

The in-flight movie options had changed since we went out, so we couldn't see Birdman after all that. I forget if it was on the way to or back from Europe that I watched The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Battling Battles while dozing off but it seemed to be going on an awfully long time. I did watch, while awake, Breathless and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which were things I'd always kind of figured I should have seen but never actually had. I am glad for seeing them even though they're not what I imagined, really.

I glimpsed several rows ahead of us someone playing the video game Crusader Kings III. This is the only time I've ever seen someone besides me playing the Europa Universalis line of games. I almost wanted to go up and hug him, except I had to suspect he'd have hated that as much as I would have. They're wonderful games but they're really not for everybody.

This would bring us back to Toronto, for my second taste of that country. This time around was less stressful, because most of it was spent in the American Customs Pre-Clearing Zone or whatever they call it. I'm not sure exactly. But since our connecting flight was to Detroit they shuffled us to an alternate corridor and put us in a series of long lines to long lines and apparently this came to satisfy United States Customs. It was nice, in Detroit, getting off the plane just as if we'd come on a domestic flight.

We had a similar impossibly long walk through Toronto for our connecting flight, on a plane that was not quite as tiny as the one we'd flown Detroit-to-Toronto. It did have a mere nine or ten rows, and put bunny_hugger ``two'' rows behind us. The quotes are because ... well. Most of the rows were two groups of two seats each. The very last one was a single row of five seats, with bunny_hugger put in the center, where her knees could be crushed by the drinks cart. This was labelled as a tenth row, rather than break up the AB-on-the-left, CD-on-the-right arrangement of seats that all other rows had. It's a weird little thing. The cockpit had a closed door so bunny_hugger did not have to see what the landing looked like through the front windows. We know of no Fleetwood Mac fans specifically on the plane.

When we arrived in Detroit, since Customs didn't need us, we were with a longer than expected wait between our flight and the Michigan Flyer. And there's not really good places to sit around waiting for the bus at the airport. But we'd been through rather worse, and it wasn't more than three hours after getting to the airport that we were joyfully back home.

Trivia: The Central Pacific railroad had revenue of $22,939.36 for May 1865. Source: Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, David Haward Bain.

Currently Reading: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I really need to see Birdman sometime - it has the feel of a film I'd quite enjoy. Trouble is, I just don't usually seem to get around to watching much TV, or that many films, always being lured in by LJ, SLU, Reddit, or other interesting fora.

In the Great Leporine World Empire, there will be no Customs. For now, though, I do appreciate it when countries at least cooperate enough to set up such bureaucracy before boarding. Once upon a time, Heathrow had a US Customs/Immigration outpost, so everyone could disembark as if coming from a domestic flight. Evidently, it was a little too sensible to be permitted to continue.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about Birdman, but there are so many movies and TV shows I mean to watch that I haven't got around to. I don't need more on the pile.

I got really used to customs as done by Singapore, though there I had the benefit of an employment pass. As a result there was basically no work to be done on my part; I could just go through only a bit slower than I would on any domestic flight. (Of course, they have to be good at international flights.) The United States is awful, since US customs have fallen into the hands of people who don't want anyone to leave or enter the country for any reason, ever. Immigration worse.

(Mind, I'm a rather strongly open-border person.)