Travel Diary – USA – Washington to London
Then there was the flight from Chicago to DC. This was not as nice as the rest, partially with it being a Braeair from Brazil rather than a canadajet. This Canadajet was set up with four seats in each row with two flight attendants. This one however was three per row, was a packed flight, and I was seated in the back row next to an engine. Not what I wanted.
In flight entertainment is working out where you are by looking out the window and that is all. I do not like flying in these. It is for many reasons. The main is that I am not familiar with them. But worse than they tend to do what feels like tight turns and stupid landings. On the flight into Chicago I thought that the pilot had decided to land 500 feet early, having made this decision about 2000 feet from the runway. The turns for VOR tend to take 30 seconds and pull at least a G. That is what it feels like… Argh.
When I got to Washington DC, Dulles had changed somewhat. It no longer has the glass bricks that can be seen in Die Hard II. Well, not as far as I could see. Also, they are building a new control tower there… It looks as if Dulles is getting rid of the strange busses that transport people from the terminal to the gates.
Coming into Dulles, I was amazed at how many times up and down I needed to go. I think this is because of major work, but you never can tell. Once I collected my bags I called my hotel, and got there without issue. The hotel was actually a motel, and was called “The Hampton Inn”.
It is set up for discerning business people I think. They have a 100 mBPS network cable on the desk for you. Also the place is covered with WiFi. And they provide a lap table for you to put your laptop on in bed. This is cute.
I had been given the plaque for roger in Des Moines, so in DC I took a photo of it and posted it to some mailing lists. A few people worked out that the Callsign on the plaque was wrong – It should have been G4IDE and was G41DE. Not very noticeable, but still a pain. I did not get to bed before about 12:30 AM local time.
In the morning at some stage I woke up and put a face mask on. Then I woke up about 9:45. Not a bad sleep. I rang John Tandler at SkyMate and suggested meeting up, so I grabbed a Taxi to his office. I had a good discussion with him, and he then dropped me at the new Air and Space museum at Dulles.
This museum is hard to describe. Imagine an aircraft hanger with about 150 planes in it, with everything from the first Boeing 707 to the concord to the Enola Gay to the Space Shuttle Enterprise. I only took about 50 photos here… It was really amazing. Everything from commercial aircraft like the concord to experimentals like the Space Shuttle and the Rhutan.
After I had seen much of the exhibition I saw the IMAX film The Magic Of Flight which was cool. Also I visited the observation tower, which was good, but the best part was the Air Traffic Control slave display on the floor below. I was impressed. After all this the staff there called a taxi for me to go back to the hotel to get my bags.
Back at the hotel there was a short wait for the shuttle. The other passenger was a French woman in her late 40’s or her 50’s – a member of the International Association of Jurists. Checking in at the Airport was easy, and I quickly found the British Airways lounge. The Lounge was nice, but has several shortcomings.
There were very few power outlets in the place. There is obviously a design problem since they have fans blowing to circulate the air conditioned air. Wireless access was available, but only through the American Airlines lounge nearby so coverage was variable. This would have been fine, except that the phones were in an area with no coverage. And there were only a few phones too. To top things off, there was no showers. Too bad.
The flight across the puddle was not bad, but it was delayed with takeoff by about 30 minutes. I suspect that some of this was related to the hurricane about to hit Florida.
I rested on the 777 flight, but did not actually sleep. Therefore I got into London about 2:00AM Washington time. At heathrow we needed to use the stairs from the plane, and then take a bus to the terminal. That was not too bad. Passport control was slow, similar to that in Hawaii last time I was there. Still the customs form was really easy to fill in, with very few questions.
When I got to baggage claim one of my bags was getting taken off the carosel by a guy who thought it may have been his. As he was about to put it back I told him it was mine. Fluro orange cable ties work well.
I was amazed at the ease of getting though customs. No-one even asked me any questions – just walk down the green line. I took a shuttle to the airport, getting a phone call from New Caledonia whilst waiting. It took about an hour to get to the hotel.
The hotel is in a good location, but is somewhat down market. It has a single bed in the room, and uses keys. They want you to return the key to the desk when you go out. No internet access, and it is about 4 minutes away to wireless access. They provide a key to a mini-bar, but there is nothing inside it.
After having a couple of hours sleep I visited the British Museum, and then found a hotspot there at Starbucks. Good to be online again. The museum was good – it has been renovated in the last few years. I took some photos but I was getting tired. The highlight was definitely the Rosetta Stone…
I guess that is all for this update… Tomorrow is the funeral which will certainly be interesting to say the least.