homeward

The French keyboard is a little hard to manage, I must say. You have to do more Alt-ing and Shift-ing, and it's not a qwerty keyboard either.

I found an interesting e-mail in my inbox last night. I’d been following the British Airways cabin crew strikes story in the newspaper and on CNN (the only English-language TV station here). The company had gotten an injunction to postpone the strike, apparently citing that the “proper paperwork” hadn’t been filed to have the strike in the first place.

Visiting a country in which the spirit of revolution still makes itself known from time to time, I was amused by this. Since when do you file papers to have a strike? I always thought the whole point of a strike was to refuse to work without much advance notice to one’s employers. Having to file papers to strike somehow takes the heart out of it, I think.

Anyway, because the strike was postponed, British Airways had started to reinstate some of the canceled flights, and my flight home was one of them. Since they’d not reimbursed me yet for the canceled flight, my dilemma was: do I take that flight home, which is direct from London to Baltimore, or do I take the re-booked United flight that had a 3-hour layover in Chicago, which I’d paid for (because how was I to know the flight would be reinstated?), assuming the reimbursement from the canceled flight would cover the re-booked flight?

I wasn’t going to get reimbursed for the United flight if I canceled my ticket. And since British Airways had reinstated my direct flight home, they weren’t going to reimburse me for that one either if I canceled it.

Eventually, I worked it out so I could get a credit for the United flight to use on another trip and take the British Airways flight home.

My train ride back to London was much better than the one to Paris. I had a seat all to myself near a window with no loud and annoying children crowding me out. They served breakfast in the car I was in, so I didn’t even have to go down to the dining car.

I got to Heathrow plenty early, despite having to get creative with navigating the London tube system since St Pancras station was a zoo and several Tube lines were shut down for repair. However, once at the airport, it only took about 10 minutes to get through security. Since it was lunch time, and my flight didn’t leave for several more hours (the gate hadn’t even been posted on the board yet), I decided to eat.

I hadn’t yet been to a Wagamama Noodle Bar restaurant in London yet, although they’re quite popular. Lo and behold, there’s one at Heathrow. I had the. best. noodle. soup. ever. A huge bowl of coconut milk and lemon grass soup with rice noodles, bean sprouts, onions, and who knows what else. It was hot and spicy and freshly made. I could seriously wax poetic for days about this soup.

I think there are Wagamama restaurants in Boston, but not elsewhere in the states, which is a shame. I’d be a regular customer.

The flight home was interesting. Once I got to the gate, I noticed there weren’t many other passengers. I imagine many who were on the flight I was on originally had re-booked like I did. We were eventually put on a bus and driven all around the tarmac. We were beginning to think the driver didn’t know where he was going, and I was worried we’d be on a puddle jumper for eight hours, and most of that over ocean.

We finally arrived at the plane, which was bigger than a puddle jumper but not as big as a jumbo jet. Since there were so few of us, the cabin crew, who were quite friendly and didn’t seem at all grumbly about the postponed strike, told us we could spread out and take any seat we wanted. So we did. I had three seats to myself in the middle section, and watched Sherlock Holmes and then The Importance of Being Earnest, and then listened to Michael Palin read from his autobiography.

I was glad I took the direct flight home. I was back in the States by 7 pm. It would have been midnight if I’d taken the United flight home.

It’s disorienting to try to adjust back to American living. The Europeans are so much better at it. They get a minimum of five weeks of vacation every year. Fresh healthy food is plentiful and available within a five-minute walk of anywhere. Packaged and processed junkfood is scarce. People lounge in cafes or on the banks of the Seine and have long involved conversations while drinking coffee or wine. They don't rush, and they don't watch much TV. They do a lot of walking and bicycling.

Amazing. Our twisted idea of eating grub out of boxes and working ourselves to death and gorging on reality TV to make ourselves feel better or more successful than others is just wrong and it certainly isn't making us happy, is it?

We have so much to learn. The slow food movement and giving up cable TV and being "green" is just the beginning of how much better our quality of life could be. Makes me want to turn around and go right back across the pond.

I think maybe a two-week ramble around England next year. Or perhaps Ireland. We’ll see.