Travel
Flying really brought back a lot of memories. I don't know where the last five years have gone. Back in 2004 I took a trip (hi counterweight, caffeineferret, cyriael, infinitepryde and bentarc) across northeastern US, and after that...after that, I've been what? Sitting at home and working. Well, if I go through my memories I can come up with many things I've done between then and now, but somehow it feels inexcusable that I haven't really done much traveling between 2004-2009.
I don't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but my mom was a travel agent, and eventually set up her own travel agency too, so we traveled a lot when I was a kid. At least one trip a year to Southern Europe and so on. So I grew up flying and traveling. Getting back into an airplane cabin and watching the ground fall away and watching the clouds envelop you, well, it felt in many ways like coming back home again, and for the life of me I can't justify why I've allowed five years to go by without traveling. It feels like a colossal mistake and I've gotta stop perpetrating it, so I'd like to devote more financial priority towards traveling in the future.
Having said that, as a green who feels guilty about being too lazy to be a good green, these days it's also difficult to justify air travel to oneself. All those emissions just to go see another corner of the world, does one have the right to destroy a bit of the environment just for your personal entertainment? What redeeming qualities does air travel have? What could justify it?
These concerns are somewhat hammered home at places like Heathrow, where the mall is basically a shrine to consumption. Lots and lots of stores, but it feels like it's the same thing over and over again. Electronics, booze, chocolate, cosmetics. Wherever you look they have shiny display cases for Dolce & Gabbana or gold jewelry. It's like the mall is designed for the superficial high society "elite". Then again, aren't they all, I suppose. I wonder what a mall would be like that would be tailored and aimed at green environmentally conscious consumers. One thing's for sure, I didn't see anything remotely like that at Heathrow.
Despite that, I've always liked Heathrow. Something about its atmosphere is so gosh darn cosmopolitan that it truly feels like the hub and center of the world, as befits its status as one of the world's busiest airports (the busiest?).
One of the things that vexed me repeatedly yesterday was the endless security checks. Man, things were easier even back in 2004. It really has gone insane. During one day of travel, I must have spent about three hours total queuing and being processed at various security checkpoints. I can't help but wonder where goes the line between reasonable caution and paranoia, and whether that line has been crossed. How much further can things go anymore, how much inconvenience can travelers possibly be subjected to, and is it possible we might see a pullback and relaxation of procedures someday. Is it even desired?
As on many of my previous trips, another vexing experience was the seating on British Airways Boeing 777s. For a guy 6'4", it's just ridiculous. There's no possible physical configuration to sit comfortably in one of those damn mini-me seats. It's just not physically possible, I say. My trip back in 2004, I actually stood and paced the cabin 90% of the 8 hour flight back to London, because it was physically painful to try to fit myself into that seat. This ride wasn't quite that bad as I'd made it a point to stay awake for almost 24 hours before the transatlantic leg of the journey, so I was exhausted enough that I fell asleep for part of the flight, no matter how uncomfortable the seat. I can tell you though, my neck and shoulders were in screaming agony when I woke up towards the end of the flight, and I had a splitting migraine from neck and shoulder tension. God, my head hurt. Fortunately I had had the foresight to pack some headache pills, so once I got to my accommodation and got to lie down and pop the pills, the situation quickly improved, but god, the agony saved from my legs felt like it just went to my head instead. For the record, I hate British Airways 777s. They are the bane of my existence.
Anyway, I disembarked at Atlanta airport and, you know it's crazy, Heathrow had it too and many others in the world do too, but I don't think I've run into them before. That is to say, airports that have their own subways. Heathrow's new Terminal 5 has three buildings that are connected by a subway line, and Atlanta's airport also has a subway line that goes between the five or so concourses. I think all my previous trips I've only done intra-airport transits with buses or on foot, so finding two intra-airport subways was a fascinating little treat.
When I exited Atlanta airport I ran into another new system I wasn't previously familiar with, that of airport-hotel shuttles. That is to say, outside Atlanta airport there's a waiting zone where vans labelled with hotel logos come pick up people and shuttle them direct to the hotel. So you walk over to this zone, chill out a few minutes (comfortably so because it's a nice and lovely comfortable +15C/59F as compared to the freezing point when I was leaving Finland), and wait for a van to stop by that has your hotel's logo. Don't even need to pre-book one or call one up, you just wait and one comes eventually. I had to wait only about 3-5 minutes before one with my hotel's name showed up. I was the only guy for that hotel, so I sat up front and chatted with the driver on the way to the place. Evidently all hotels generally just buy their own vans and have a guy who drives non-stop back and forth between the hotel and the airport. It's supposedly the cheapest system they've figured out, which makes me wonder a little about how much anybody's really tried to streamline the system. I mean you could have two hotels practically side by side, and both of them send separate vans non-stop back and forth. What's more, they send the car going back and forth even without knowing if anyone will be coming over from the airport. It just seems incredibly wasteful. Of course, from a customer service standpoint, it was top of the line. It was free of charge, I just walked to a zone, waited a couple of minutes, and had a guy drive me direct to my place. Couldn't get easier or cheaper from a traveler's standpoint, and it was of course oh god so very appreciated because I was having that splitting headache at that point.
But I do have to wonder just how efficient it is. Seems like a system like that would result in a massive waste of gasoline. On the other hand, after a company invested in making things so incredibly easy for me, I feel kind of like an ungrateful guest criticizing them for being wasteful.
Anyway, I checked in and dropped my things to my room and popped the pills and rested a while. Eventually I went back to the reception and chatted a while to get the lay of the land. I loved how he was like, "There's a Ruby Tuesday's if you go that way you'll hit a dead end and go left at that point. Stay near where you'll see other hotels. Don't go right when you hit the dead end. You don't want to be there."
That is so alien to a Finn. What am I, in Sudan or Somalia or something? I am so unused to "bad neighborhoods" in the West. I can't say I wasn't intrigued by the prospect of going to explore just what it would have been like if I'd turned right. But I had 26 hours of traveling under my belt and a headache and tired and well...I didn't do it. But go figure, I'm like a big kid. Tell me I don't want to do something, and you only make certain that I get curious about it. I am so easy for reverse psychology.
I'm up early (since about 5:18), the headache is gone, I feel refreshed, it's warm and the inn breakfast has all the orange juice I can drink.
I definitely don't regret coming. Flying isn't cheap nor is it environmentally friendly, but I suppose from the way I feel, I can at least say it is good for the soul.
I just hope I remembered to turn the stove off at home. :)
I don't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but my mom was a travel agent, and eventually set up her own travel agency too, so we traveled a lot when I was a kid. At least one trip a year to Southern Europe and so on. So I grew up flying and traveling. Getting back into an airplane cabin and watching the ground fall away and watching the clouds envelop you, well, it felt in many ways like coming back home again, and for the life of me I can't justify why I've allowed five years to go by without traveling. It feels like a colossal mistake and I've gotta stop perpetrating it, so I'd like to devote more financial priority towards traveling in the future.
Having said that, as a green who feels guilty about being too lazy to be a good green, these days it's also difficult to justify air travel to oneself. All those emissions just to go see another corner of the world, does one have the right to destroy a bit of the environment just for your personal entertainment? What redeeming qualities does air travel have? What could justify it?
These concerns are somewhat hammered home at places like Heathrow, where the mall is basically a shrine to consumption. Lots and lots of stores, but it feels like it's the same thing over and over again. Electronics, booze, chocolate, cosmetics. Wherever you look they have shiny display cases for Dolce & Gabbana or gold jewelry. It's like the mall is designed for the superficial high society "elite". Then again, aren't they all, I suppose. I wonder what a mall would be like that would be tailored and aimed at green environmentally conscious consumers. One thing's for sure, I didn't see anything remotely like that at Heathrow.
Despite that, I've always liked Heathrow. Something about its atmosphere is so gosh darn cosmopolitan that it truly feels like the hub and center of the world, as befits its status as one of the world's busiest airports (the busiest?).
One of the things that vexed me repeatedly yesterday was the endless security checks. Man, things were easier even back in 2004. It really has gone insane. During one day of travel, I must have spent about three hours total queuing and being processed at various security checkpoints. I can't help but wonder where goes the line between reasonable caution and paranoia, and whether that line has been crossed. How much further can things go anymore, how much inconvenience can travelers possibly be subjected to, and is it possible we might see a pullback and relaxation of procedures someday. Is it even desired?
As on many of my previous trips, another vexing experience was the seating on British Airways Boeing 777s. For a guy 6'4", it's just ridiculous. There's no possible physical configuration to sit comfortably in one of those damn mini-me seats. It's just not physically possible, I say. My trip back in 2004, I actually stood and paced the cabin 90% of the 8 hour flight back to London, because it was physically painful to try to fit myself into that seat. This ride wasn't quite that bad as I'd made it a point to stay awake for almost 24 hours before the transatlantic leg of the journey, so I was exhausted enough that I fell asleep for part of the flight, no matter how uncomfortable the seat. I can tell you though, my neck and shoulders were in screaming agony when I woke up towards the end of the flight, and I had a splitting migraine from neck and shoulder tension. God, my head hurt. Fortunately I had had the foresight to pack some headache pills, so once I got to my accommodation and got to lie down and pop the pills, the situation quickly improved, but god, the agony saved from my legs felt like it just went to my head instead. For the record, I hate British Airways 777s. They are the bane of my existence.
Anyway, I disembarked at Atlanta airport and, you know it's crazy, Heathrow had it too and many others in the world do too, but I don't think I've run into them before. That is to say, airports that have their own subways. Heathrow's new Terminal 5 has three buildings that are connected by a subway line, and Atlanta's airport also has a subway line that goes between the five or so concourses. I think all my previous trips I've only done intra-airport transits with buses or on foot, so finding two intra-airport subways was a fascinating little treat.
When I exited Atlanta airport I ran into another new system I wasn't previously familiar with, that of airport-hotel shuttles. That is to say, outside Atlanta airport there's a waiting zone where vans labelled with hotel logos come pick up people and shuttle them direct to the hotel. So you walk over to this zone, chill out a few minutes (comfortably so because it's a nice and lovely comfortable +15C/59F as compared to the freezing point when I was leaving Finland), and wait for a van to stop by that has your hotel's logo. Don't even need to pre-book one or call one up, you just wait and one comes eventually. I had to wait only about 3-5 minutes before one with my hotel's name showed up. I was the only guy for that hotel, so I sat up front and chatted with the driver on the way to the place. Evidently all hotels generally just buy their own vans and have a guy who drives non-stop back and forth between the hotel and the airport. It's supposedly the cheapest system they've figured out, which makes me wonder a little about how much anybody's really tried to streamline the system. I mean you could have two hotels practically side by side, and both of them send separate vans non-stop back and forth. What's more, they send the car going back and forth even without knowing if anyone will be coming over from the airport. It just seems incredibly wasteful. Of course, from a customer service standpoint, it was top of the line. It was free of charge, I just walked to a zone, waited a couple of minutes, and had a guy drive me direct to my place. Couldn't get easier or cheaper from a traveler's standpoint, and it was of course oh god so very appreciated because I was having that splitting headache at that point.
But I do have to wonder just how efficient it is. Seems like a system like that would result in a massive waste of gasoline. On the other hand, after a company invested in making things so incredibly easy for me, I feel kind of like an ungrateful guest criticizing them for being wasteful.
Anyway, I checked in and dropped my things to my room and popped the pills and rested a while. Eventually I went back to the reception and chatted a while to get the lay of the land. I loved how he was like, "There's a Ruby Tuesday's if you go that way you'll hit a dead end and go left at that point. Stay near where you'll see other hotels. Don't go right when you hit the dead end. You don't want to be there."
That is so alien to a Finn. What am I, in Sudan or Somalia or something? I am so unused to "bad neighborhoods" in the West. I can't say I wasn't intrigued by the prospect of going to explore just what it would have been like if I'd turned right. But I had 26 hours of traveling under my belt and a headache and tired and well...I didn't do it. But go figure, I'm like a big kid. Tell me I don't want to do something, and you only make certain that I get curious about it. I am so easy for reverse psychology.
I'm up early (since about 5:18), the headache is gone, I feel refreshed, it's warm and the inn breakfast has all the orange juice I can drink.
I definitely don't regret coming. Flying isn't cheap nor is it environmentally friendly, but I suppose from the way I feel, I can at least say it is good for the soul.
I just hope I remembered to turn the stove off at home. :)