Uneventful flight on a Boeing 777. Personal entertainment system in every seat. Hey this is almost as cool as taking a bus through the Andes. Switch from TV to music the lowest non off level is deafening. Back to TV, the shows are all twenty minutes long, but they don't start and end at the same time. So you finish a show and cut in on another 4 to 17 minutes in. Brilliant plan. The remote control is tethered to the seat in the armrest. So I can do what? Pull it out and hang it over the armrest into the aisle? Jam it next to my ass? Use it as garrote? Every time I put my arm down it changes the volume. Who does usability tests on this crap?
Go to passport control, take an escalator, a train, an elevator, three more conveyors, people are not doing the proper stand on the right walk on the left, just march like I'm no a trek for at least half a mile. Fly through passport control in five minutes, my personal time must have been 20 seconds, this guy was a machine.
Off to get luggage. It takes a long friggin' time to take all the luggage off a 777. The luggage stops coming, my pack is nowhere to be seen. Having a great time now. Wait half an hour it burps out one final bag. Off to customs another half mile walk. Get send to the green dots, (no inspection required, get out of jail free) first time that has happened in America for me in years.
Off to check the bags follow the yellow dots to check in my bag at least a thousand yards of meandering through lines that back track on them selves. Now where? Another frigging terminal? Hit the heat of day and walk for a quarter mile to terminal D. Walk up to check in counter. No you are already checked in, take it to TSA bag drop off. Hand them back they throw it on a conveyor.
I'm sure I missed some conveyors and elevators in the above description.
Off to security, none of the types of questions that you get in England, "Did you pack your bags yourself? Have they been in your possession? etc." Get in queue "Take off your shoes." Back to this again are we? Long queue get to front.
"Everything out of your pockets. Everything." WTF? Oh, it's a porno scan. Walk into the machine take off your belt. Step back out of the machine put belt on conveyor. My wallet, passport, tickets are in separate buckets from my computer and cameras. My shit is now through the xray machine for picking from the five people trying to get their stuff back together. Step back into the porno scanner. "Put your hands over your head." Ok, but I've been 2 days without sleep, ran out of underwear and I'm going commando. Pants fall to knees I just stand there, my shirt tails affording my some level of dignity. I stand there for 10 seconds. Apparently the machine had to be recalibrated but I guess they figured they had subject me to an adequate degree of indignity and let me pass.
Finally found a damn flight display, I don't know why they are hundreds of yards apart here. They are in every restaurant and cafe in Heathrow. Flight is delayed by a couple of hours.
It's been a long day.
Instead of the very high velocity hand blowers that get your hands completely dry in two seconds without heat that I was using in Heathrow I encountered empty tissue dispensers in the bathroom.
Its been a long day and its not over
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