Perfidious Albion

I'm off to the UK tonight!

I have a direct flight from Dulles to Heathrow. With any luck the thunderstorms will roll through, plane will take off on time, and I'll be able to knock myself out and wake up in London.

Unfortunately, I have a cold. I feel craptacular. I am a grumpalicious, sneezy, snot factory. It's making me four kinds of bitter.

Basically, I am going to be the person on the plane that I typically loathe. The one who blows their nose every two minutes, who snuffles in the dry (disgusting, recycled) plane air, who coughs, and who is clearly just generally miserable. The one I am certain is going to pass bird flu on to me. Today, my friends, that's me.

Can you tell I'm feeling very sorry for myself?

Maude said it's cold there, and so my bag is full of jeans and fleece. (And liquids in three ounce or smaller containers. Because that really makes us safer.) I have only not been cold in England twice, both times when they were having terrible, tree-killing heat waves. But I'm not going for the weather. I mean, does anyone go to England for the weather?

When I was a kid we used to stop in London on our way back to the US from whatever tropical country we were living in. And the first thing my dad would do would be to take us to a thrift store and buy coats. Because even though it was May or June, we'd be freezing.

I'll be in cattle class, and hopefully I won't get stuck next to a massive nose picker or bickering old couple or enormous stinky man who takes up more of my seat than I do, whose armpit I have to fight to stay out of. Not that I've ever had to contend with that before. Or multiple times.

I know there are dynamic, interesting people who travel. Maybe this time I'll get to sit next to one of them. Although I suppose this time would be wasted, since they're probably going to hate me anyway. I think I'll just hope for a small and innocuous seatmate.

For overnight flights I come prepared. I bring chocolate, sleeping pills, one of those ugly inflatable neck pillows, fleece, and eye shades. I look delightful, as you may imagine.

I take the sleeping pill after we take off (because, of course, you want your wits about you during takeoff in case you need to leap from a burning plane). I used to not want to take them in case of emergencies, but then realized that if you go down over water, you're totally screwed anyway, so might as well mitigate the whole thing with Valium. Best case scenario I sleep till they wake me up for breakfast or landing.

And then, you guys, I wake up in the land of big purple Cadbury vending machines! And delicious beer! And potato chips, which I know they call crisps, in 50 different flavors! And Britpop! And, most importantly, Maude! And Dan! And baby!

I'll take a coach rather than a bus (although I don't know why they can't just call a bus a bus) from Heathrow to Norwich, which apparently takes four hours - marginally longer than taking the tube and then the train. And tomorrow afternoon Maude and Benjamin will meet me at the coach station.

And then, then the fun begins!

Yay!