Suzy Says

Made it back safely. The Fates had kindly provided me with a nice guy sitting next to me, so chatting with him and watching mindless movies on my iBook made the process relatively painless. Guy looks like Ray Liotta but with hazel eyes and is a Canadian living in Berkeley. Are all nice guys Canadian?

It was a beautifully clear day, as it is today, so the view flying over the bay and the City was spectacular. No matter where I’ve been, or how close or far away, my heart alway leaps when it sees the City in all its glory. I’m really glad to be home.

Longest part of the trip was baggage claim. I have to say, Heathrow is much more organized. When I got through Customs and down to the baggage claim there, my bags were already waiting for me. Anyway, the really important things made it through unscathed, though the glass on a painting got completely shattered, but that’s easy to have repaired.

Got home to find that our apartment is under almost third world conditions, only with better d&eacutecor: 4 people, 4 cats, and 1 dog in a one bedroom apartment. But Mom’s stuff is supposed to arrive today, so she should be moving into her new apartment today or tomorrow. In the meantime, time to catch up at work!

It’s around 6:15 a.m. in London. Despite all the warnings about needing three hours for check-in, security, etc., it took less than half an hour. So now I have two hours to dread the ordeal ahead. In the meantime, here’s how to achieve a mental state suitably disordered for travel:

1. Go to sleep late at an unfamiliar hotel airport. Be so paranoid about not getting up on time and missing the plane that you have a wake-up call scheduled and have borrowed a travel alarm clock, but keep waking up every couple of hours anyway. Wake up before alarm goes off and just get the hell up.

2. Get the hell up really early. Discover that what you thought were 4 sachets of instant coffee are in fact two sachets of decaf and two of “real” coffee. Gah. Have half a cup of instant coffee, which is almost enough to enable you to face getting dressed, repacked, etc. Also just enough to replace your total exhaustion with partial exhaustion with an amusing edge of very minor caffeine buzz, which in turn enhances your native nervousness.

3. Arrive at the airport with plenty of time to fret. Do not eat anything. About an hour before take-off time, have a V&V (a valium with a vodka and orange juice). Worth the shudder if you can keep it down.

4. Hope for the best.