04-27-08

On the road again. After a refreshing evening in a finally air conditioned room, we took our badly battered skins wayward east to England. God had to save the Queen for 5 extra hours as we sat in the St. Thomas terminal anxiously watching one lone, sweaty and tired looking mechanic repair a generator on our 757 that would take us back to MIA where we would catch our flight to LHR. Once "fixed" I was reassured during a brief conversation with the Captain. He explained a generator had been broken on the past four flights and that AA had finally received the part, which was being installed. Of course, I interjected - given the bird was still flying - that the generator only powered non-avionics and critical component to flight, correct? Captain: No, it powers everything, but we got two of them and so long as one of them works we're okay. OK. In my mind I wondered how he would feel if the two of us flew to Indo China where I brokered one of his Kidneys for $10,000. Afterall, you only need one of them.

In Miami, we had yet another lay over but this time, I took a shower in AA lounge. I suppose my smart-ass thoughts were the product of slow DEET poisoning. Two hours and many free drinks later (we kept going in and out of the lounge to collect drink coupons), we were abord my favorite bird, the Boeing 777. One of the most technologically advanced airliners equiped with side-to-side turbulence attenuators I felt quite at ease. Here's Kathleen enjoying some videos on the plane:

The ride was quite smooth and I managed to squeeze in 5 hours of deep sleep amidst a 9 hour flight. The new Sure headphones I purchased to replace my Bose Quiet Comfort II's were quite a bit better. They actually go in your ear, blocking true sound wheras the QC2's actually emit a frequency to block out the background noise. As a result, the fidelity is superior and you don't look like corporate soldier turned DJ at the Ministry of Sound.

We landed in Heathrow where we were greeted with a "spot of coffee." In today's deflated dollar terms, a "spot" means $5. It is so absurdly expensive here.

Meanwhile, we arrived at the Avis and decided that safety was first, we chose to change our reservations from a manual transmission car to an automatic one. We figured I'd be learning to drive on the left side of the road with more complicated traffic patterns, traffic circles and other sorts of English quirks.

On the road, we came across this interesting choice of branding by this fine English entrepreneur: B&E Erection Services. If you're going to go this route you might as well call yourself T&A (ha!). Better take some lessons in marketing from the Carribeans.

B&E aside, the view of the English Countyside is as they say, quite charming. Its actually harder than you think driving on the left side of the road. Your (or rather my) ability to judge the left side of the car (being seated on the right) becomes reset and I felt like an all new driver again. Although this time, I wasn't hearing my Mom scream in my ear every 5 seconds. But perhaps, it was for the best as there were a number of incidences where I curbed the passenger side (left) wheel.

We settled in and proceeded to take a walk around our "cottage" bed and breakfast after some afternoon Tea. Decorations in the room were in classic British Countryside decore. I could have swore the Banshees were hiding behind the paisley drapes.

There was some really great scenery - although after St. John / Thomas I probably would have preferred a couple nights in London to get the 10 days of bucolic overspendors of white sand and Carribean ocean out of the system.

This one's for Samurai. In case she doesn't think I'm eating.