totallygone

travel, at a tangent


Return of the native

So, I?m back in London. Fate was kinder on my return trip than it had been on the outbound one ? in spite of exceeding the baggage limit by around my own weight, the check-in agent charged me domestic rates and I paid around $150 on excess baggage, which included $80 for carriage of my beloved bike. This was a bargain, believe it or not, although I paid £40 tax on it at customs. Too lazy to investigate my baggage in order to tax anything else I might have paid more than £150 for, they billed me for the bike and, with a conspiratorial wink, waved through my small caravan of cases. Can you believe it? £150 of goods is all you?re allowed to bring into the UK? Welcome to rip-off Britain. For more of which, see above.

The highlight of the trip was my first class seat - all the way from SFO to LGW (via Cincinnati). Having had about an hour?s sleep the previous night, I managed to stay awake just long enough to enjoy my free lunch (in coach you pay for everything except water), see the Yosemite, the Cascades, and the Rockies, before dozing until the changeover in Kentucky, which was unexpectedly green and pretty. With just enough time to buy promised duty frees, I dashed through Cincinnati, pausing briefly in the Body Shop to re-hydrate (prompted by the sight of the Texan girl behind the counter, whose complexion called to mind that of a week-old onion), and again at duty free to buy outrageously cheap cigarettes for my aunt. The flight was near-empty, my cabin so deserted that the crew took pity on my solitude and fussed over me throughout the flight, even as I slept. The purser observed, with a rather sleazy wink, that I?d ?had a lovely sleep,? which I took to mean that I?d snored heavily and had probably been heard from the cockpit. That or he?d ravished me in my sleep. Unlikely, what with the sound effects ?n all.


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