Geek in progress

We had slightly hoped that the return trip from Seattle would proceed as planned. And it did. More or less. We did not miss any plane, and we arrived in Brussels with all of our bags. But. The check-in counters of BA in Seattle were rather undermanned. The line was long, and the time was running short. Finally BA decided to allow economy class travellers at their first and business class counters (though they call it slightly different IIRC). With less than an hour to reach the gate, the check-in line began moving faster. No windows seats left (obviously), and we were at the very rear of the plane, on what they claimed were pre-assigned seats. Ah well. We moved on to the security line, with abut 35 to 40 minutes before the deadline the check-in lady gave us to reach the gate. I wonder how the line behind us could possibly make that deadline. Lucky for us the security check went speedily. Some people were confused about the no-belts, no-shoes demand, but we passed through ok. No re-checks.

When we made it to the gate, having just missed the train – causing an extra 4 minute delay – we were asked if we’d passed the immigration machines. Nope. Seems weird, checking out of the US is obligatory, and we thought we were doing fine because they had removed the immigration paper from the passport when checking in, but apparently there is nobody forcing you to pass the US-visit machines to have your prints taken once more. When they announced it at the gate prior to boarding, a lot of people were getting up and moving out fast to the said machine.

The flight itself was uneventful, I watched MI-III, which was good, brainless entertainment. Nothing spectacular and certainly not as good as I and II. The ride was bumpy at times, but no booze was spilled. The dude serving us was not very friendly, and the chick in front of me got angry when I stowed away my powerbook and (reading) book in the seat, bumping into her back. I managed to sleep through most of the night. We landed half an hour late. This gave us max. 1.5 hours to reach the next gate. Great. Heathrow made our plane wait for another half hour on the runway, which was even greater. Add to that the fact that we needed to stay in Terminal 4, passing the same security line we passed on our outbound trip, and you can see that there was a good reason for an increase in stress. Additionally, we had seats on row 51. The back of the plane. With 55 minutes to reach the gate, people began to move at the business class. Luckily, some people stayed seated, so we could moved on faster than expected. We also did manage to walk by most of the passengers of our plane on the way to the security check. So, we finally made it with 15 minutes to spare to the gate. Sigh.

In Brussels, both bags turned up on the carroussel, so we went on our happy way, trying out the Belgian railways. Luckily, we managed ok. No delays.

I am in Seattle for PACT, where a paper I am co-author of, will be presented by Kenneth. The trip over here was smooth in some aspects, bumpy in others.

First of all, let me say that the airline food on the BA flight was nothing short of good. The most yummy food I’ve ever gobbled down when flying. The chicken came with a nice mushroom sauce, the potatoes were edible, and the vegetables were yummy. The dinner was very good as well, though I did not eat it all. While the British in general can’t cook, they do make the greatest cakes.

Inflight entertainment was good too, with nice screen for everybody, and a rich choice of programs to watch. I viewed The Da Vinci Code, and the second half of X-Men II: The Last Stand. I drained my PowerBook battery trying to get some work done, and had a bit of a nap.

Now on to the bad parts. The flight from Brussels to Heathrow arrived late, and we were delivered to the wrong gate, so we had to wait for a bus to take us back to a gate where we were allowed to arrive. It seems strange to me, but apparently, the Brits are not allowed to disembark at a terminal where people will embark subsequently. To me, it seems like one just needs two levels at the terminal, but they seemed not to have thought of that. So, after a wait and a ride (including a stop to remove some bag, that had fallen from a lorry, from the road) we were finally ready to make our way from Terminal building 4 to Terminal building 4, which seemed to include a thorough security check. I knew that fluids were not allowed, but they made me remove the spare ink cartridges I had with me. Even the attendant though it was simply ridiculous. By then, we had about 40 minutes left of the two hours we originally had according to our travel plan to get to the gate for boarding the seattle flight. Twenty minutes later, having moved on about 20 metres in the row, we asked some official looking girl what to do. One minute later, another official looking girl passed by, towing a load of passengers needing to get their connection. We joined the passenger train and were brought to the front of the line, where they made us take off our shoes, belt, take out our laptop, picked out an old man for screening, … By then it was 15:45, and the gate closed at 15:55, or so our boarding pass mentioned. Needless to say, we took the rest of the way to the gate at an increased pace. I did not dare to run, remembering the Brazilian student police shot a while ago. But we made it on time to the gate. Obviously, as the boarding got delayed to 10 minutes past the foreseen take-off time.

That, however was not the end of trouble. Upon arrival in Seattle, we were last through immigration, joining the group still waiting for their luggage. As more bags rolled onto the carroussel, and ours were not with it, our agitation increased. Slightly. But when the man who set the luggage upright at the carroussel walked away, a mild panic surged over us. I was more than relieved when my bag appeared. But Kenneth went half beserk when his did not. To make a long story short, we waited some more, went to see the lady form BA, got send through customs, onto the main bagage claim floor, where left-over bags seemed to have been directed. Nothing there, went to see the BA bagage people, where they told us the bag was still in London. Really. It should arrive today, they said, and gave us $50 to buy some stuff.

So far the first day in Seattle. We did find some good food in Rock Bottom, just around the corner from our Hotel.