Planet Utah

I heart British Airways (part one)

My flight from Houston to Heathrow was around 650 bucks. I don't know if that's a lot or a little, but it seemed pretty inexpensive to me.

By way of comparison, my flight from Heathrow to Dublin was $250 bucks...and that was for a 45-minute flight, jammed into a tiny seat, where they charged me three bucks for a Coke and offered me a seven dollar snackpack that seemed to have nothing more in it than a scone/ paperweight and some runny Euro-yogurt.

On British Airways, you don't pay extra for anything. Really, you could leave your wallet in the cargo hold and you'd be fine. And what do you get? Well...

When you board the plane, there are members of the flight crew posted strategically so that you are greeted politely at every turn. It's kind of like walking into a big house with servants whose only job is to make sure you are comfortable. That's nice. It makes you feel like a guest, not a piece of luggage. (And they don't do any of that irreverent/ironic humor you get on Southwest. They wouldn't presume to be so informal with you, the guest.)

Unlike last time around, when I flew third class, this time I flew fourth class, i.e., "World Traveler." (British Airways has first class, Club World, World Traveler Plus, and World Traveler.) Even fourth class has comfortable seats in which you can actually sleep. It's not so much that they recline more than usual...it's that they have these little fold-out "wings" on the headrest that keep your head from flopping forward if you fall asleep.

The one shortcoming? The armrest, of course. I don't think there's a coach class in the world that has a decent armrest. And I'm always amazed that people will sit down next to you and take the whole thing for the whole flight, as if it were just for them. (If you mention this phenomenon around my father, he will tell you that monopolizing the armrest is a greater injustice than the O.J. Simpson verdict, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Russians' gold medal in basketball in the 1972 Olympics. Combined.)

On this flight, however, I'm sitting on the aisle, and--YES!--there is an empty seat next to me. My forearms will be able to kick up their feet, relax, and unwind. Enjoy yourselves, fellas. You've earned it.

Footnote: In my experience, there are two acceptable armrest compromises, neither of which requires an explicit spoken or written agreement. Either: a) one person takes the forward part of the armrest, and the other person takes the rear part; or b) one person takes the whole armrest for part of the flight, and the other person takes the whole armrest for the other part of the flight. 

What do you do if someone doesn't honor their part of the bargain? There are some people in the world who will speak up: "Excuse me, could I use part of the arm rest? Thank you..." I'm not one of those people. I just sulk, arm jammed up against my ribs, fantasizing about horrific accidents and acts of premeditated violence that, if we lived in a just world, would have cost my seatmate his or her arm.

It takes a while to get to Ireland

Because I was already in "I'm gonna blog this whole trip" mode, I started taking notes on things waaaaaay before I arrived in Dublin. So, let me just drop one pre-flight anecdote on you, then we'll get to the flight, then we'll get to the REAL action (such as it was).

I flew out of Houston because you can't fly straight from Austin to London. I've never driven to Houston before, so I put my trust in Google maps. About two-thirds of the way to the airport, I really had to pee. I spotted an exit with a gas station, so I pulled off. At the first stop sign off the exit, I noticed a police car behind me. I also noticed a "Do Not Enter" sign that appeared to be posted on the road I wanted to enter to get to the gas station. With a cop behind me, I figured I better not take any chances, so I went the opposite direction, intending to make a U-turn and chart another course to the gas station. As soon as I turned, though, on went the cop lights.

Despite having to pee, I felt okay, that is, I didn't think I was speeding, or that my registration was expired, or anything like that. So, I wasn't anxious. Plus, I learned in my concealed carry course that if you get pulled over, you should stay in the car, roll down your window, turn off your stereo, keep your hands on the wheel, and wait for instructions. That's what I did.

The officer asked for the normal stuff, went back to his car, came back to my car, asked where I was headed, asked why I had pulled off on that particular road, and then, finally, asked me to step outside of my car.

At that point, another cop showed up to facilitate what followed: My trunk was searched, my luggage was searched, and the inside of my car was searched. In fact, Cop #1 got all the way inside my car so that he could poke around, while Cop #2 made small talk with me. I was asked whether I was carrying any guns or other weapons, whether I was carrying any drugs, whether I'd had any trouble with the law before, and, just for good measure, what my Social Security number was.

During all of this, I was polite, cooperative, and respectful...despite an urge to say, "What the FUCK?", and despite my resentment at having my personal property searched, and having to give my Social Security number. (Of course, I could have refused at any point, but that would have raised more suspicions, which would have made the cops even more eager to see if I was hiding something, which might have resulted in their trying to secure a warrant to search my car, which definitely would have meant missing my flight.) And when all was said and done, I was allowed to get on with my life with just a warning for having no front license plate.

So, what was up? Here's the officer's version, with my comments. He's on the side of the road, and he sees me driving past with no front license plate (which, to my surprise, is illegal in Texas). He catches up with me, pulls up behind me to pull me over, and then I immediately try to get off the interstate. (This was when I exited to pee; had no idea he was behind me at that point. I was more concerned about my bladder.) So, there's a red flag. Then, when I'm at the first stop sign after the exit, I turn right down a road that doesn't lead anywhere. (Not that I knew that; I was just trying to avoid going down a "Do Not Enter" road with a cop right behind me.) That's a second red flag. Then, when he asks me where I'm going, I say "Houston," but no one traveling from Austin to Houston would go the way I'm going, because it adds 30 miles to the trip. (Good to know, for any future trips to Houston...but I can show you my Google maps printout indicating that this is the route I should take.) That's the third red flag, and I am now officially "suspicious." And that explains everything that follows.

Let me tell you what bothered me most about all of this: In the end, the cop says, "Because you were cooperative, I'm just going to give you a warning." I have to assume, therefore, that if I had said, politely and respectfully, "No, you may not look through my trunk, or my luggage, or the inside of my car without a search warrant, and no, I'm not going to give you my Social Security number," that I would have gotten a ticket (maybe more than one). In other words, while I was free to exercise my rights, it would have cost me. That doesn't seem right.

Is there a less pleasant travel experience than renting a car?

Why can't car rental companies get with the program? Everybody else in the travel industry seems to be managing the consumer experience relatively well. But every time I rent a car, the following things happen:

1. I stand in line forever, waiting as the clerks behind the counter process each customer agonizingly slowly.
2. When it's finally my turn, the counter guy tries to upsell me to a bigger car, asking if I've ever driven on the local highways and byways before, and telling me that a lot of people don't feel safe in a car as small as the one I've rented. He also hints at a correlation between rental car size and penis size.
3. Same guy tries to sell me insurance, which is a ridiculously bad deal at the price they're offering it, but is a triply bad deal when you consider that I'm already covered by: (a) my regular auto insurance; and (b) supplemental insurance through the credit card I use to rent the car. Even so, when I decline coverage, the guy makes me initial here, here, here, here, here, and here, and then makes me sign here and here indicating that I'm fully responsible for any damage to the car--whether or not the damage is my fault, whether or not I'm driving at the time, whether or not a junior manager from the rental car company deliberately sideswipes me just to prove the point that I really should have gotten the insurance, etc. As I'm signing my life away, the counter guy directs his gaze downward and silently crosses himself.
4. Same guy tries to talk me into paying for gas in advance, which, he tells me, is a better deal than paying for it on the aforementioned highways and byways, but which I know will only be a better deal if I luck into picking up a hitchhiker from NASA who can calculate exactly how much fuel I'll need to complete all of my scheduled travel AND get the car back to the rental agency with the gas gauge on dead empty.  

Now, compare all of this to the experience you have when you return the car. There's usually somebody waiting there for you, or in the immediate vicinity. They walk over to meet you, check the odometer and the gas gauge, ask if you had any problems, and then punch numbers into some handheld device from the future that prints out a curly little receipt giving you permission to leave. The whole thing takes about 60 seconds. 

The ease of the return experience demonstrates that rental car companies can deliver satisfactory customer service when they put their minds to it. They just need to put their minds to it on the front end.

Footnote: After my most recent rental experience, I wondered if joining one of those rental car company "VIP clubs" might be a solution. I get my car insurance through USAA, and after poking around a bit on their Web site, I discovered that USAA members can join a few of the big-name clubs for free. So, I joined one and subsequently reserved a car from that company for my next trip. That's in a few weeks. I'll let you know if it makes any difference. 

UK Trip, Part 14

Back in London. Last day of my trip. I will miss London once I'm gone. So much history! And so much modernity, too. You've got St. Paul's and the Tower and Parliament just a stone's throw from new condos and night clubs on the banks of the Thames.

Does America have anything like this? Does any place else in the world? The only place I can come up with is Rome -- a city of such historical significance that is also a great modern city as well.

During my trip I began to wonder if religion, mythology, idolatry, and monarchy are just different manifestations of the same phenomenon: a basic human desire to believe in something larger than oneself. By the end of my trip, the idea that any one group--Christians, say, or American Indians--has a monopoly on truth when it comes to the big questions about life became quite ridiculous. And yet, all groups fervently believe that they are right, despite utterly flimsy evidence.

If there is a God, he probably chuckles at this.

UK Trip, Part 13

Now I'm in Edinburgh. It's much more touristy than Glasgow, but it's got much more history, too. This is the only part of my stay where I did not get a room right in the city center. I didn't like that. I didn't like having to take a cab or a bus home at the end of the evening.

One thing I did in Edinburgh was a "literary pub tour," in which a couple of actors, in character, take a bunch of tourists from one pub to the next, talking along the way about the great literary figures who used to reside in the city and haunt its pubs. (The pub tour was where I met the sassy Australian girl who told me that my work "sounded like 'wank'" to her, and who told me that she thought almost all Americans, including me, were loud, malicious, and ignorant. She said all of this with a smile, a giggle, and a sense of humor, though, so I forgave her.)

When you're on the pub tour, you obviously come across groups of people here and there who wonder what you're doing. (Remember, the two guys leading the tour are actors, in character, playing their parts very loudly so that the trailing crowd can hear.) Outside one place, a very old, very drunk Scottish guy in a kilt, a beret, and a grimy plaid jacket said to one of our guides, "What's all this?" Our guide said back, quite sternly, "Nothing you need to know about." Then, just to rub it in, he said, "Like the jacket...did you lose a bet?" Everybody's got a chip on their shoulder...

(London flashback. I just remembered something from London. I had thought that you could walk right up to 10 Downing Street, where the British prime minister lives, and, you know, just look at it. I mean, it's a street address with a door right in the front, so I thought I could walk up to the door and gawk, and maybe even go in. I figured there must be some kind of lobby or reception area where they would tell me that the general public was not allowed any further. NOPE. The street is gated off and guarded by armed soldiers on both ends. Guess I was a little naive.)

One of the major tourist attractions in Edinburgh is the Edinburgh Castle. While I was touring the castle, I noticed a couple getting married in a little side section. The groom and his groomsmen were all wearing the traditional Scottish kilts. Cool, huh? I'll never get to do anything like that. My heritage is a mix of German and Irish. So, I can wear lederhosen on my wedding day, or dress like a leprechaun. Neither one has the charm of a kilt.

One thing to notice about the pub culture -- they drink VERY slowly. Nobody is there to get drunk. They're there to enjoy each other's company. Knowing that, I had entertained a little travel fantasy (if you can call it that) before I left. I imagined that one day I'd wander into a cool old English or Scottish pub and get pulled into a conversation with some cool old English or Scottish coots -- just old-timers having a pint and trading stories.

Well, on my last night in Edinburgh--the last night for pub-hopping on my trip--I made a sad note in my journal that I had never gotten to live the fantasy. As I wrote in one of the earlier posts, the pubs weren't as friendly as I'd hoped they'd be. No one ever invited me to join them, and I didn't have the guts to insert myself into an old guy conversation.

Right after I jotted down my journal note, though, an old Scottish guy waved me over. He asked my name and shook my hand, holding onto it for a long time. I then asked if he minded if I sat with him. He said no. I grabbed my stuff, got a beer, offered him one, and pulled up a chair at his table. Just a few seconds later, a friend of his came in. Another old guy! They were two World War II vets, now in their 80s, trading jokes and stories!

As it turned out, though, the guy who waved me over was too drunk to be any fun. He asked me my name six or seven times, and slurred so badly that I could not understand most of what he said. I did figure out, though, that his name was George, and that he had been at the pub on and off for six hours. (He lived near enough to walk home for food now and again.)

His friend was stone-cold sober, but his burr was thicker than extra-chunky peanut butter. Though I could pick up words here and there, I had no sense AT ALL of his meaning. He might as well have been speaking Polish.

So, that was how the travel fantasy played out. Big disappointment. Serves me right for not having a regular travel fantasy, like running into Elizabeth Hurley at a London pub and finding her desperately lonely.

Next day I flew back to London from Edinburgh. There was an Indian guy in the men's room with long, thick, black hair on his ears. I'm talking hair an inch or two long, black as coal, growing out of his ears -- not the inside of the ear, where you stick a Q-tip, but the outer rim of the ear, all the way from the top down to the lobe. I immediately imagined this guy deciding at some point: a) "I'll never meet anyone, so screw it"; or b) "My wife will never leave me, so screw it."

UK Trip, Part 12

This will be a brief one -- I just wanted to be sure I didn't forget it.

I have a proposal: all UK children between the ages of four and ten should be frozen in time, never being permitted to grow older. This would be solely for the enjoyment of tourists. The kids are THAT cute.

Let me give you one example from my trip, and another example from someone else's. When I got to Edinburgh, I did a hike up a hill (Arthur's Seat) that oversees the entire town and surrounding countryside. It's about 45 minutes to the top -- a short hike on a pretty steep trail. As I was coming back down, I saw an English family making their way up: mom, dad, and two girls. The younger girl looked to be about five. Just as I passed she turned to her father and said, "Daddy, can I have a carry now?"

Come on -- how cute is that?

When I relayed that story to a friend, he told me that he had been walking along the streets of London once, behind a mother and young son making their way to his school. He was working on a lollipop, but somehow it popped out of his mouth and hit the sidewalk. He stopped to look down at the ruined sweet, full of regret. His mother didn't notice, however, and kept walking. To get her attention, he called after her: "Mommy, I've dropped my lolly!"

So, it's settled. If I ever get married, I'm sending my kids to primary school in Great Britain.

UK Trip, Part 11

I've been home two weeks, and I'm still writing about my trip. I'm not even close to being finished! By the time I'm done, I'll be ready to leave on my next adventure.

Just to remind you where we were, I'm now driving around northern Scotland, ready to take a sharp turn southward and head for Edinburgh. I noticed a few other things driving around the countryside, making stops here and there. First of all, they have a thing like ESPN there, but it's dominated by coverage of soccer, cricket, and rugby. Their version of ESPN has the same smart-alecky attitude that ours does -- "hey, we're totally into this stuff too, but let's not forget, it's just sports." It's funny, though, to see the jokes and poses applied to sports about which you know ZERO.

What else? A lot of bars prohibit the wearing of "football colors." Apparently that leads to altercations. They also might want to think about prohibiting men. I've heard that their presence in a bar ups the probability of a fight pretty dramatically.

I know this may sound crazy, but the whole time I was in the UK, I only wanted to take one picture. I ended up blowing the shot, but here is what I wanted to photograph: a Highland cow. I was totally enchanted by Highland cows. By the way, referring to a Scottish girl as a Highland cow will get your skull smashed in with a flail, Braveheart-style.

One last thing -- pretty much anywhere you go in Scotland, if you're hungry for "crisps" (i.e., potato chips), you can get them in a flavor called Prawn Cocktail. I abstained, thank you very much. (Also steered clear of the Creamy Haggis flavor, and the Whiskey 'n Porridge.)

Driving etiquette on Scottish highways is pretty minimal. You rarely find a "two-way carriage," i.e., two lanes of traffic going one direction and two lanes going the other. That means that sooner or later you're going to have to pass in the oncoming traffic lane. The typical pattern among Scottish drivers, though, is for one slow driver (usually an 18-wheeler, but often just a slow tourist like me, or an old guy) to create a bottleneck, with 15 or 20 cars backed up behind him/her. If you happen to get stuck in that chain of cars, you're just STUCK -- unless you want to try to pass the entire bottled-up group at once (which, of course, is basically like standing up in a Scottish rugby pub and yelling "Long live England!", i.e., it's an E-ticket to a violent death). Nobody leaves any space to pass one or two cars at a time. So, you're completely at the will of the lead slow-poke.

Periodically, the highways have "lay-bys", which are little pull-off areas where the slow-pokes can get off the road and let everyone pass. But they're totally optional. If the slow-poke doesn't use the lay-by, again, you're just stuck. I was often stuck for an hour at a time. (The satellite navigator lady kept asking, "What's the frickin' hold-up? We should have been there a half hour ago." My response: "Shut up, Goose.")

Next stop, Edinburgh...

UK Trip, Part 10

In the UK they have these weird little credit card consoles that they bring to your table when you're ready to pay. That is, instead of taking your card and running it through the flux capacitor behind the bar, they bring over this little wireless device about the size of a six-inch Subway Club and run your card through it right at your table. Your total comes up on a little screen on the device, you indicate how much you want to tip, and you give the device back to your server. The machine then spits out your receipt, you sign, and you're finished.

The thing I don't like about this is that your server instantly, and in your presence, gets to see how much you tipped. Not a big deal if you're going to tip well -- but if the service was bad and/or the food was bad and you tip poorly, the server looks at you like, "America spends billions of dollars slaughtering innocents in foreign countries, and you can't even come up with 15 percent?" (even though it's not your fault).

I guess if I were more of a man I wouldn't have a problem with this. Still, if I'm only going to tip, say, 10 percent, I prefer to leave my puny tip and make a beeline for the door before the waitress knows what hit her. (Note to PC police: I only dine at places with waitresses, hence my non-gender-neutral usage.)

I stayed overnight at a place called Oban, Scotland. I was looking through a tourism brochure there, and a couple of things caught my eye. First, there was a restaurant called "Shower of Herring." Wasn't that one of the Biblical plagues -- a deluge of herring over the length and breadth of Egypt? Maybe I'm getting that wrong.

Second, there was an advertisement for Oban Sea Adventure Wildlife Cruises, where you were promised glimpses of, "sea eagles, whales, seals, dolphins, otters, basking sharks, and deer." Deer? In the water? Yes! This, apparently, is not uncommon in Scotland. It's actually one theory as to what people have really been seeing in Loch Ness.

UK Trip, Part 9

After I arrived safely in Glasgow, I toured the city for the day. In contrast to London, which was warm and sunny, Glasgow and the rest of Scotland were cold, windy, and wet. I had packed a wool hat, gloves, and a poncho...and felt pretty stupid for doing so while in London. But in Scotland, they were a God-send.

I only spent one evening in Glasgow, and went out with a Scottish "friend" from the Internet. (That is, he's a guy I "met" online on a website we both contribute to.) It was great going out with a real Glaswegian to some genuinely Scottish places (as opposed to touristy ones). He told me that my main objective in visiting Glasgow was to avoid being head-butted by young street hooligans. I told him that with his accent, he would absolutely KILL with the girls in America. That was most of what we talked about, actually -- girls. Later on, at my insistence, we went to a nightclub. (Glasgow is famous for its night life, so if you're in Glasgow, you gotta hit a club.) It was a Sunday night, though, so I wasn't expecting much, and I wasn't disappointed. The place had four or five people in it. Two of them were girls, however, dancing together, dressed in black. My Scottish friend and I chatted them up for a bit, and I ended up kind of getting isolated with one. Her name was Karen Lewis. That was about the last thing she told me that I was able to understand. Most of our conversation consisted of her shouting something over the music and me shouting back, "What?!" It was the combination of the loud noise and her thick Scottish burr that basically made her unintelligible. But it was fun to meet her anyway.

The next day I drove to the outskirts of the Scottish highlands, passing (and stopping at) Loch Ness along the way. It's a very touristy place, of course, but I really respected the guy who ran one of the two major exhibitions in  town. You pay 15 bucks to get in, and you walk through a number of rooms that present all of the evidence for and against the existence of the Loch Ness monster. By the time you're done, it's clear what conclusion they want you to reach -- there is no Loch Ness monster.

Surprising, huh? You'd think that a place whose existence depends on there being, or at least having been, a Loch Ness monster would hedge its bet a little. But no. They're very clear on there not being a monster. They were kind enough, however, not to say: "Sucker! We still got your 15 bucks!"

(Sidebar: did you know that Donny Osmond is now hosting a game show on British TV? He is. It's weird to hear him say, "Okay now, for 3,000 pounds,  what was the name of Winston Churchill's wife?")

As I've noted before, the Scottish burr rules. Guys, every girl in Scotland becomes your dream girl once you hear her talk. It's too cute. Particularly cute is their version of "uh..." and "um..." These are fillers that appear in every language, just in different forms. In Scotland, the "uh..." becomes a drawn-out version of the letter "a." So imagine just saying the letter "a," but drawing it out for a second or two.

Do it now. I'll wait. (Hums Jeopardy theme...)

That's how "uh..." sounds in Scotland.

As for "um...", say the word "aim," but draw it out for a second or two. Now you've got your Scottish "um..."

In Oban, Scotland, I did a distillery tour at 10:00 in the morning. Not a good choice, particularly with a mild hangover.

Here's a weird thing about the UK. If you're out at a club, or bar, or restaurant, whatever floor you happen to be on right now, the bathrooms will NOT be on that floor. They're either going to be one floor up or one floor down.

Here's how to lose weight on your vacation -- only eat one meal a day. That's what I did. I got up, bought a Diet Coke, toured like a madman all day, broke for a late lunch/early dinner at 5:00 or so, ate like Henry VIII, and then didn't eat anything else. Came back about five pounds lighter, despite my massive beer intake (and some absinthe in London, too; it's banned in the U.S., which is why I had to have it).

All over the UK, instead of "great" they say "brilliant," as in, "I had a brilliant time in London." I really like that. I never did quite figure out "cheers," though. Is it "thank you," "you're welcome," "there's a spider on your pants," or what? Anybody know the answer?

Another weird one: "salad cream," as in, "What kind of salad cream would you like?" My answer: "You know the very phrase 'salad cream' has sort of put me off of the whole idea of salad. I'll just have a large hunk of boiled meat and some mushy peas, please."

"Salad cream," of course, is simply what we call "salad dressing."

UK Trip, Part 8

Harrowing. That's the word I would use to describe my driving experience in Scotland. I flew from London to Edinburgh and "hired" (that's how the Brits say "rented") a car to drive to Glasgow, and then up into the highlands. So, imagine driving an unfamiliar car, driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, in a strange land, in the rain. Scary. I'm not kidding. I was lucky to make it through the first hour alive. I couldn't see out of the fogged-up windows, I drove the wrong way into roundabouts, I ran red lights because I saw other people doing it. Even after three days, I never got over the fear of a head-on collision. It just feels WRONG to be on the left side of the road. To add to the discomfort, the roads in the Scottish highlands have no shoulder, and they are open to cyclists. Periodically, then, a group of cyclists, your car, and an eighteen-wheeler are all packed onto the same narrow strip of road. If you're lucky, you've got six inches of clearance on both sides.

The one smart thing I did was to "hire" a talking navigation device. The navigator lady turned out to be a fickle mistress, though. There were times when she clearly didn't know where we were but was too embarrassed to admit it. There were times when I needed instructions--"what do I do at this intersection?"--but she was silent. (Every time this happened, I would say, "Talk to me, Goose!" Amazingly, I never failed to laugh at this.) There were times when you could hear the frustration in her voice after I missed yet another turn: "Recalculating...again." All in all, though, I was glad she was with me. I wouldn't have wanted to try to navigate Scotland on my own.