We've been talking to friends in the UK. I am looking forward to seeing them. It has been a couple of years and mostly what I've seen of them in that time has been on Facebook. At the same time that I'm embarking on a new expedition, I am abandoning ship on projects at home for the time we'll be gone. I have given myself permission to do this.
It is the next day and we are in the airport. We haven't been flying for awhile and we are not used to the procedures. It turns out that we are a good deal more efficient than is necessary to get on board an airplane. It is only 6:50 pm and the plane doesn't board until 8:20 pm. I don't think I've ever been this early for a flight, but as I say, I haven't been flying much.
Kristi managed to get us seats that are together. She just went up to the guy at the gate and he helped her out. That will be nice as we were placed quite a distance from each other in our original seat assignments.
This kind of travel is somewhat surreal as we were there, and now we are half a world away in the UK. We haven't had any real sleep yet, but are safely in our hotel room. We ran into "Fools Gold",who we know from north of here. They just spotted us as we were checking into the room. I was so surprised and didn't recognize them for a bit. I think we'll see them tomorrow morning. By sometime tomorrow we should have a phone that works as well. The network that we are signed up for doesn't reach to this particular location.
We haven't seen any news today which is totally out of character for us. Maybe I should say for "me" as I'm not sure Kristi would see as much news as she does if I were not around. Driving to this hotel was fine. I'm slightly surprised that I'm not already asleep though. It is about time for that.
There was a memorable incident on the airplane before it took off yesterday. Kristi and I have been discussing all day what we saw and what it meant. I'll tell you about it in the morning when I am more awake. Suffice to say that it involved a woman and her baby being kicked off of the plane.
for now say good night. We'll blog you in the morning.
About the woman on the airplane I can only say what I saw and heard. She and the staff gave enough information to discern that she was Nigerian. The staff on the plane were trying to tell her exactly what facilities were available for her and her baby. She didn't like what they were telling her and it sounded like she had some experience carrying a child on an aircraft, certainly had some expectations which were not being met. As the staff explained, showed her another woman who had a baby onboard she became more and more agitated. We didn't know whether she was used to getting some kind of special treatment for being a mother, whether her demands were reasonable, or if she was simply trying to intimidate the staff into meeting her demands. It seemed to me that there was some kind of disconnect going on, that she didn't understand what the staff were telling her, or they didn't understand what her needs were. At one point a large authoritative man came up to her and told her to calm down or she would be removed from the aircraft. She became even more agitated and they removed the woman and her baby from the plane.
We are at a Travelodge near Bishop's Stortford. We are getting ready to head off to
near Sheffield today. We are taking our jet lagged time about doing anything right now. We had a nice visit with Steve and Carol of Fool's Gold Acoustic at breakfast. We have seen them perform a number of times on other trips. It was good to have a chat with them, and so serendipitous that we would actually connect with them. They are here visiting with Carol's parents.
So it is a small world. It doesn't seem that way to me most of the time as we travel across the planet for this reason or that. We have a phone that is working, and we are back into our old ways. We are looking forward to playing for people here, and experiencing them. Keep the home fires burning.. Steve Nebel
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