Popping over to Charleston for the weekend

[drron]

What a young AA crew!

 

[Skyring]

What a young AA crew!

I especially liked Farrah Fawcett-Majors in the middle. Unfortunately they didn't offer to let me cuddle her - sometimes a quick-thinking FA will offer to take the photo so I can be in the shot (and they out of it).

They were a lovely crew, full of smiles and cheer. Made the flight a delight.

 

[drron]

So first it is the bag lady in Dublin you want to snuggle.Then the AA FA you want to cuddle.Is this the jet lag speaking?
I remind you of all the stuff waiting to be sorted at home.more talk like this and the piles will be a lot smaller!

 

[Keith009]

I agree with you about AA cabin crew, have more often than not had great service with them on long hauls. Domestic is more inconsistent but have never had any of those infamous flying dragons either.

 

[Skyring]

So first it is the bag lady in Dublin you want to snuggle.Then the AA FA you want to cuddle.Is this the jet lag speaking?
I remind you of all the stuff waiting to be sorted at home.more talk like this and the piles will be a lot smaller!

Cuddles is as far as it goes - the web is full of me hugging beautiful women.

 

[Skyring]

Toddlin' Town

Chicago
8 October 2008
I spent two nights here last year, having a wonderful time exploring museums, having a beer on top of the John Hancock Building 92 floors up, driving down Route 66 – winding from Chicago to LA, I’ve been on the Chicago bit – admiring the awesome skyline and getting absolutely stuffed to the gills on mountains of food at some quirky eateries. A week, a month is not enough to see everything.

I had four hours, including immigration and customs going out, and checkin, security and boarding going back in. That’s two hours, time enough for a third lunch, decided a couple of my friends.

Another internet love story, another fresh baby. These two are the reason I drive a cab. Two years back, I wanted to travel to Chicago for their wedding, but there just wasn’t the money. So I cast around for a job to replace internet bookselling, and taxidriving came up. I’ve driven the night shift ever since and loving it.

They met through BookCrossing, fell in love, and when her family was cold about the idea of her marrying outside her faith, Jake converted, which is a fairly big deal. All for love.

Jake is a world-class computer geek. Insanely intelligent, a wild sense of humour, a man who has found his heart’s desire early on.

And Rachel, she just sparkles. Ever since I first met her on the web, and later in real life in Fort Worth, she has charmed the socks off me. She runs a company producing yarn, with the most delicious colours. She ran me through the production facility last April, and named on the label me as helping with a special batch. I love her.

That visit, I was sleeping on their couch with the aid of cats, when I was woken up pre dawn. There was Rachel, excited almost beyond words. She’d just done a home pregnancy test and it was positive! She was electric with happiness.

In due course, Miriam arrived, and this was my chance to see her at last.

I walked out of customs, and there they were. Hugs all round. My life is full of the joy of friends, and all the long hours, all the drunks, all the empty taxi ranks long after midnight, they are all worth it for the smile of a lovely lady and her happy family.

We drove through Chicago, freeways and backstreets, the USA at its urban finest, to a quirky eatery called the Spaghetti Warehouse.

Chock full of memorabilia – road signs, old vending machines, a streetcar, etc. etc.

And a menu promising mountains of food. Me, I was full of two lunches on the plane, and another meal to come on the flight to Washington not far away.

I had a bowl of chicken soup and a beer, but I dined well in the surroundings and the company.

Before I left, this "Taxi Stand" sign proved irresistible.

All too soon it was back on the road, back to the terminal, more hugs in bittersweet parting, no time for a shower in the lounge, donate the drinks vouchers to a likely looking drunk.

 

[Skyring]

Where's the fizz?

8 October 2008
Chicago to Washington National
AA1442 MD82
Seat: 6A
Scheduled: 1630
Boarding: 1600 (Gate H14)
Pushback: 1630
Takeoff: 1644 (to the south)
Descent: 1740 (Washington time)
Landing: 1809
Gate: 1820 (Gate30)

In between checkin and security, and the boarding announcement, there was maybe twenty minutes. I asked after a shower in the lounge, but they were all taken, and there was no time to wait. Oh well. Coffee and some quick internet, and my drinks vouchers were handed over to a table beside me, where I overheard a discussion about financing the next round.

Some fabulous views of Chicago as we flew south out of O’Hare and curved around to the west. I looked down with some regret that I hadn’t been able to explore this exciting, spectacular city. But hey, who’s the one setting the travel itinerary, hey?

Quick visits of one or two nights are my speciality. If I like a place, I’ll come back with my wife and spend a week.

What can I say? Boring flight in a boring aircraft with a jaded crew. I knew I was in trouble when I asked for champagne and they gave me something totally flat in a tumbler. Maybe it was champagne once, maybe they figured an Australian could be fobbed off with whatever looked good.

Then again, I wasn’t that interested in the tucker. Cranked my seat back, not that there was much in the way of recline available, and punched out a few zeds. The cabin crew probably made comments about my accent.

We came into National from the west, “yanking and banking” along the Potomac, which may have been the pilot’s comment on the financial crisis, but gave me some splendid views of nightlit Washington DC. Impossible to capture as a photo, but that didn’t stop me trying.

Now, there are some busy airports around the world, and I know that if I look up at Hong Kong, I’ll likely see a string of jumbos sliding down the glide path, but Reagan National takes the cake. It’s all smaller airliners, and they scuttle around on the ground missing each other by minutes and metres. The pilots gun the engines to cross the runway while their brother is on final.

Me, I was wondering about my baggage. Maybe that young lady back in Dublin was looking at it, even as I pondered. Maybe she was curled up in bed, dreaming of crazy middle-aged Aussies bearing bears.

I got out and walked bloody miles to the baggage claim area. The concourse shops were selling FBI and CIA t-shirts, in a range of sizes from toddler to jumbo.

Baggage carousel, and I waited, on tenterhooks and toenails, until the very last piece came out, along with a big tag saying “END BAG”.

Luckily this was attached onto my big yellow bag, and the next one out was my other bag. The security monitors are probably still overloaded from the sound of a huge sigh of relief.

My mate was waiting out in the “cell phone area”, a holding pattern for pickers-up listening for the call from the terminal, and after a few minutes loitering on a cold, dark platform, my mate the Rescue Geek showed up and helped hoist my luggage into his car.

Another BookCrossing friend, he was there at Dulles for me when I emerged, blinking and bewildered after my first big trip overseas. Together we’ve explored the Smithsonian Air and Space Annex, had various American meals, met up again in Sydney where we walked down to the Opera House, listened to Jenny Kendall-Tobias via online BBC Radio Guernsey, driven down to Charleston, and shared a hotel room together there.

He embodies all that is good in America, a happy family man, dedicated to public service, ever cheerful and interested in current affairs. Every time I despair of the USA, I think of Rescue Geek in his emergency services jacket, and I’m reassured.

I had two nights with the Geek, including a day exploring Washington together, and I was looking forward to every moment.

 

[QF WP]

Your luck finally turned, Skyring! I thought you might have stuck your bear on top of your bags with the "Last BAAg" sign on it and got a photo...

 

[JohnK]

What a young AA crew!

Who said that female AA crew were past their use by date?

 

[drron]

Who said that female AA crew were past their use by date?

Turning 62 next month so they have to be a lot older than the one on skyring's flight to be past their used by date!

 

[kpc]

Great report Skyring! Enjoyed it a lot, and the pics!

 

[Skyring]

Death in Washington

Washington DC
Thursday 9 October 2008

Alex the Rescue Geek drove me (and my luggage) to his home in suburban Alexandria, which is in Virginia, just south of the capital. With cobblestoned streets named after kings and dukes, it is a lot older than Washington itself.

His home is pure Americana, a house with attic and basement in a pleasant tree-lined street. Every movie or television show about middle-class USA, it was filmed right here.

Inside, the American dream – small, beautiful, energetic wife, and two daughters of primary school age, cute and bright and fun. Dog and cat to round off the picture.

As soon as my bags are opened, young faces peep around the door – luckily I have Tim Tams, a copy of The Magic Pudding, and a toy kangaroo and koala, one for each daughter.

Homework, pack the kids off to bed, and then we talk into the night, catching up.

Eventually, I can’t hold my eyes open any longer. It’s been a long day since my walk in pre-dawn Dublin, and, plane naps and skewed body clock aside, I’m exhausted.

Morning, and I’ve at last got the chance for a complete change of clothing. Trousers have been going at it for a week, and could probably walk around Washington by themselves.

I join the family for breakfast, help walk the girls to school a couple of blocks away, and then Alex and I walk down to a bus stop, just the other side of I-95. There’s a constant stream of FedEx and USPS trucks from nearby depots, but at last a bus turns up, almost empty after the commuter peak, and we find seats for the brief ride to the Metro station.

I purchase the equivalent of an Oyster card, load it up with enough credit for a day or two of travel, and we’re off. First stop, the Pentagon, where we walk two sides around the iconic building to the memorial to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack here.

Still a little stark, it will be a pleasant place once the saplings turn into full trees, shading the benches. In fact, the memorial has been open to the public for less than a month, dedicated on 11 September 2008.

Each bench is an elegant piece of art, streamlined, curving up from the ground, all aligned to a single direction – the flight path of American Airlines AA77, a Boeing 757 hijacked between Dulles Airport in Washington DC and Los Angeles, and deliberately crashed into the Pentagon by Islamic extremists. There were 184 victims, 59 on the plane, and 125 inside the building, and each victim is memorialised by a bench.

Benches point towards either the Pentagon or the direction of the attack, depending on whether the victim was on the plane or in the building. The benches are also arranged in lines by the age of the victim, and it is sad to see that many identify children, who were aboard the airliner, travelling on an educational trip to the Channel Islands near Los Angeles.

Some of the benches held mementoes and tributes. I noticed staff carefully removing paper pages with photographs and personal information of the aircraft crew members, placing them inside plastic bags for storage.

In years to come, it will be a pleasant place to sit down, eat a lunch, relax and just enjoy the outdoors, with the huge office building beyond. But for now, it’s still new and sharp-edged, the visitors murmur, and everyone is on their best behaviour.

I placed Ringbear on one of the childrens benches for a formal portrait. There were other benches, listing Navy officers and Defence workers, and maybe one might consider them to be legitimate targets of military action, but this was an attack by fanatics against the very heart and soul of America: children, teachers, civilians killed without pity.

We reversed our steps to the station, taking the next train to Rosslyn. In 2005, I staid in the Marriott there, adventuring out while my wife attended a conference. Now, I followed my wondering path of three and a half years ago, across busy roads to the Iwo Jima Memorial, past the National Carillon and into Arlington Cemetery, where America’s military dead lie in seemingly endless peace.

This time around, there is no snow on the ground, and I’ve circled the globe five times since that first fresh excursion abroad.

The clustered figures and flagstaff of the memorial are difficult to photograph with a bear in the foreground. The light is wrong and I have to circle around a few times before I can find a shot I’m halfway happy with. Alex tells me about the summer events here, with bands and silent drill teams in the long evenings. Mid-morning, it’s all but deserted, but the location is worth savouring, Washington’s landmarks in the distance, and the crosses of Arlington stretching away on one side.

I have an appropriate book for release here: “Flags of our Fathers”, which describes the campaign for Iwo Jima, the Marines who raised the flags atop Mount Suribachi, the historic photograph, and what happened to them all afterwards.

Then we leave, passing briefly through Arlington National Cemetery, where we spot a funeral site being prepared. Arlington’s a difficult place for me. All those names, the feeling of national sorrow, Lee’s mansion crowning the hill, and the flame burning above an assassinated President.

There’s dignity and pride here, but I can’t help but wish that someone, somewhere would listen to the message of all these deaths. Let them die peacefully in bed, not scattered around the world, young men and women suffering and dying for causes that seem unimportant a generation later. The map of Europe at beginning and end of the Twentieth Century was pretty much unchanged, but how much sacrifice went into causing and reversing those brief changes!

Down a grand avenue lined with memorials, some fancy footwork across intersections not designed for pedestrians, and we walk over the bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. On my previous visit, the Potomac was all but frozen solid, and as I crossed in my light jumper, so was I.

This time around, it’s a beautiful day, and the flight of marble steps up to the figure of Lincoln, calm and presidential as he looks down the Mall to Congress, is busy with tourists. Halfway up is a sign pointing out the place where Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech, and it seems fitting that this speech and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address are linked here. It is a grand and inspiring place, despite the distant echoes of gunfire echoing down the years.

I get my mate to hold up my codriver for a photograph to mark the visit. These images of Ringbear around the world eventually wind up on my iPhone in the cab, sparking conversations with passengers, invariably beginning with “That bear’s certainly had some wonderful holidays!”

Yes, we have.

 

[Skyring]

The Wall on the Mall

Washington DC
9 October 2008

As a city, Washington doesn’t thrill me. Too much of it is a boring grid pattern of low rise offices. L’Enfant, who laid out the streets, superimposed a web of diagonals radiating from occasional traffic circles, and the result is a rather odd and difficult mix.

In the city itself, there’s an absolute monster mash of styles, from neoclassical piles with forests of columns, to ultramodern glass and steel. Side by side.

Here and there iconic buildings poke up, but for the most, it’s offices, shops and hotels, shading into townhouses on the fringes.

I’ll make an exception for the Mall. Lincoln Memorial at one end, Capitol on the other, lined with outstanding museums and galleries, it is one of the world’s great public spaces.

Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Monument, looking east, a glorious prospect opens eastward. I sat Ringbear down for a happy snap, savouring the moment, before Alex led me down and through the parkland to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

This is actually three distinct pieces of work. There are two multiple-figure statues, representing the male and female participants, but the memorial’s main feature is a long black wall inscribed with the names of those who died in Vietnam.

It is set off the main axis of the Mall, shaped in a shallow V, the arms pointing to the nearby Lincoln Memorial and the more distant Washington Monument. Nearly 60 000 names are etched into the polished black granite panels. Visitors seem to relate to the long long list of names in an extraordinary fashion, stroking the letters, making rubbings of the names, leaving personal gifts or messages.

It is an emotional place. A memorial that engages the visitor. A place where the participants, rather than the political victors, are the focus.

It is also the place where I took one of the best photographs of my life, quite by chance. I’ll quote from an article I wrote for BookCrossing.com about my first visit to Washington:

The sun was setting as I hurried beneath the bare trees. The frozen waters of the Reflecting Pool were a sheet of ice on my left, the shadowed face of the Lincoln Memorial ahead of me drawing closer and on my right hand side, somewhere amidst the deepening twilight, was the black stone of The Wall, sunk down out of sight. I found a path, crested a small rise, and there it was, a stream of people here in the cold sunset standing and walking quietly along the path beside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

As the space program reached a climax with the moon landing, Australians and Americans were fighting a war in Vietnam. There's a wall in Canberra marked with the names of those who died, and here in the heart of Washington is another wall, a great many more names, thousands and thousands of them, and just as the visitors in Canberra search out certain names and slot poppies in between the slabs bearing the lists, here visitors come to see and touch and make rubbings of the names of those they remember.

I left two books here, side by side. The first is a story of Australians in Vietnam, a bittersweet memory of a jungle war called The Odd Angry Shot, later made into a moderately successful movie, and beside it I left an American book about remembering Vietnam. On its cover was a picture of a flak vest placed at the apex of The Wall, at the place where the two great wings of stone meet at a shallow angle, forming a V for Vietnam, and there was only one possible place to set it free.

I set the books down amongst the fallen leaves at the base of the black wall, stepped back and took a photograph. I carefully retrieved my journal and lined up another shot along the eastern wing, the stark column of the Washington Monument catching the final watery, wintry rays of the sun, people walking, making rubbings, standing silently for photographs, or just gazing up at the names. I felt a bit of an intruder here in a sacred American place, but there was that undeniable bond between our two nations. We had fought side by side in Vietnam, and Korea and World War II before that, and again in subsequent combats, including the current war, where we were again helping to share the load.

Vietnam must hold a special place in American hearts, just as that long ago defeat in Turkey rings down the years in Australia, where each year people rise in the early morning to attend a service at sunrise to commemorate a dawn attack that began a legend of a hard battle fought in a distant place for reasons few of the participants could have explained. They went, they did their duty, they did their best, and some of them gave all they had. It is fitting that friends, families, comrades and descendants come here to remember those who never came home, and I was glad that I had come to pay my respects at the end of a very strange feeling Australia Day.

I raised my camera again to take another photograph — I usually take two or three of the same scene — when the young man in the foreground of the photo above reached up to the cold black surface of The Wall to touch a name. And my heart.

This time around, I found the name the young man had reached up for – a bit of detective work with the original image had given me the exact location – and pointed it out for Alex.

No touching photograph this time. I took one or two, but there wasn’t the depth of emotion on display, and frankly I feel a bit like a voylteure in deliberately attempting to get photographs of personal emotions. I found a flower and a card, resting against one of the panels near the eastern end, where the wall rises to ground level. At the apex, the panels are three metres high.

I was ready for a snack by then. Mid October, but Washington was still warm and humid. We found a kiosk where I bought a root beer and a hot dog. We sat down on a bench for a rest, enjoying the setting. There was a soldier in full dress uniform; gold braid and medals, and nobody batting an eye.

We skirted the Washington Monument, turning left to go up to the White House, where I was keen to snap another iconic Ringbear photograph. Since September 11, visitors are kept at some distance, and I commented to Alex that you’d need heavy weapons, such as a bazooka, to reach the White House from this range.

We arrived at the fence, where I opened my bag to get out my camera and bear, saying that I’d travelled halfway around the world to get this shot, and one of the cops in attendance announced that the fenceline was now closed. Perhaps the Secret Service monitors the conversations of tourists with remote microphones and had marked me and my bear as a threat.

We crossed the road and I took my photograph, which turned out rather nicely, despite the security fence included in shot.

And, just down the road, a unique vehicle. Not sure about a second passenger, but there's probably a lot of room in the boot.

 

[simongr]

Re: Flying from Ireland

Two-class Boeing 767, using the First class seats I’d discovered last year during one actual and two inadvertent upgrades (equipment changes where my preallocated seat mapped into a different cabin). A bit fussy and fiddly, but you can arrange the seat to form a useful bed or a workstation with a sizable workspace. Quite possible to have a laptop in use whilst enjoying a meal, for example.

Were these the tilt and swivel first class suites?

 

[Skyring]

Re: Flying from Ireland

Were these the tilt and swivel first class suites?

They tilted, but there was no swivelling. However, they could track back and forth to get you close to the work surface.

 

[NM]

Re: Flying from Ireland

They tilted, but there was no swivelling. However, they could track back and forth to get you close to the work surface.

These are the international business class seats installed in the front cabin of 767-300s and the middle cabin on 777 aircraft. When used on domestic routes, these become domestic first class. These are different from the "tilt and swivel" international first class seats on the 777 aircraft.