2001 in Great Britain

Part 1: London

15 November, 2001

I checked in to Virgin's first class section, seat 8-h, and went to the lounge. Virgin has built an impressive lounge in the new international terminal for their first class passengers; I received a complimentary lunch of chicken skewers with a cilantro pesto sauce, and more nuts than George Bush has brain cells.

I also stopped by duty free to get some chocolates for my friends in the United Kingdom. Two pounds of Sees truffles. The flight itself was the usual excellent service provided by Virgin. More Thai curry on the flight (a red curry with chicken) along with salmon and shrimp cakes. A lousy selection of movies, but that is probably more reflective of the abysmal summer movie collection than anything else. I recall Swordfish, Legally Blonde (again), Cats and Dogs, Princess Diaries, Planet of the Apes, and SW9. There were two others. I managed to survive much of Apes, but it was truly dreadful. After that I went to sleep, and slept for four hours.

I woke up with a back and shoulder massage. There was some minor turbulence over Greenland, but apart from that the flight was smooth. Breakfast was a bacon butty.

We circled Reading for 20 minutes, then landed on time. I got through immigration quickly, and got two of my bags. I then waited for the last bag, my clothing. It had been mis-sorted. Richard and Sophie met me, and we headed off to Artemis Court (not without an adventure with the car park lift.)

A quick re-pack at Artemis Court, and we were heading off to Luton Airport for an Easy jet flight to Glasgow. There was nothing easy about it, though, as we were stuck in traffic and then had to wait 15 minutes for the bus. We missed the flight's closing by 2 minutes.

Sophie to the rescue. Being a bit more civil, she talked the ground staff into allowing us to board the flight. Being a Southwest style flight, we ended up with boarding cards 145-147. But, since the luggage check was closed, we were allowed to pre-board to get our luggage on board. Amazing.

Easy jet is the most crowded seating I have ever seen. I can't even open up my laptop properly.

Since the Easy jet computers were down, the flight left an hour late anyway, and arrived in Glasgow with no problems.