Greetings from London's Heathrow airport! I've got to say, this keyboard I'm typing on is testier than the ones I used in Ecuador, where it took or group some 30 minutes to find the "@" sign.
In any case, that's not the point. So far, the travel portion of the "trip" as a whole has been...interesting. Can you tell that's a euphemism? When I checked myself in last night, I elected to stick with my window seat, assuming that, flying to Europe, I'd have a blast gazing out the window for whatever portion of the nine hours I was not glued to the TV screen on the seatback in front of me. Unfortunately, I was more glued to the wall than anything else, gazing at nothing as I tried to get comfortable around the, well, fairly inconsiderate guy in the middle seat who'd apparently decided that, as the poor recipient of the least-desirable seating position, he was going to monopolize both armrests, which, by the way, included, by way of his profound elbow-leaning proclivities, repeatedly changing the channel I was watching, and occasionally inadvertantly shooting the volume up. Aside from discovering (once again) that I'm mildly claustrophobic, and more prone to panic attacks than I thought, perhaps more distressing was the fact that my TV was..."effed up." When I got on the plane, it was working fine, turning off for the safety demonstrations and whatnot, but with a large variety of delightfully exciting-sounding movies, and plenty of TV shows to look forward to. After the TV's had been mysteriously shut off for about 45 minutes, I asked a flight attendant what was going on, to which he replied that they were "resetting" the system. For what, I don't know, but after they came back on, everyone was suddenly limited to 25 channels playing approximately six different shows, television and movies mixed together, on a continuous loop with a variety of subtitles arbitrarily available. I realize I sound overly bitter about such a mundane thing, but I have what I believe to be two very good reasons - first is that I just got off a NINE-HOUR flight. I was sort of hoping the amenities for such a leap would be a tad bit more functional. Second, and this is a derivative of the first, I was on a 747. That's right, Dad, my first time on a 747, which, by the way, is quite impressive in First and Business Classes, and the Club Executive whatever section (which was predominantly composed of seats facing backwards. Really. WTF?), but was a little disappointing in regular old Economy. I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising, but did I mention that there was no fan/air conditioning for little old me crammed in the corner? Yes, Daddy, I know I'm being annoyed, irritated, and whiney, but I haven't even gotten to the most frustrating part.
Security.
I think I can honestly say that today was the first day where Sea-Tac security came out on top. They very kindly and graciously, with little or no fussing, checked my film and photo paper by hand, so as to not make it go through the x-ray, and though it took an age and a half, it wasn't really a bother, and it made me feel quite satisfied. Here at Heathrow, on the other hand, I was told about six or seven times, in answer to the question, "Could you please check my light-sensitive photo paper and film by hand?" that, "Ma'am, the x-rays won't hurt anything less than 3200 ISO!" Now, first things first - THAT'S NOT WHAT I ASKED. Seriously, are they listening? I KNOW the freaking schpeil, I KNOW you don't actually give a rat's ass about my equipment, but could you please LISTEN TO THE FREAKING QUESTION? It took some two minutes for the guy to actually say, "oh, no, sorry, we're not allowed to check anything by hand," which, frankly, is bullshit. I walked by two agents checking bags by hand on my way out, but whatever. I've done my research, you know! Yes, it doesn't hurt the film or the photo paper the first time, but the effect is cumulative - four times through the machine, and ISO 00 film gets just as damaged as ISO 3200...
FIVE HOURS LATER, EDIT: I HAVE ARRIVED IN ROME. WHO THE FUCK CARES HOW I GOT HERE?
