For the first time in countless years, we’re off to the States for a couple of weeks. We are going to get reacquainted with the wife of an old, late lamented friend and colleague from my software development days. He was the project manager at the customer of my software company and we formed a close friendship He sadly passed away four years ago at the beginning of Covid, though Covid was not quoted as the reason. [We remain unconvinced.] Finding a mutually convenient slot in the calendars is a trick but we did.
Our final destination is Richmond, VA. Francine had an accumulation of American Airlines airmiles from her business days and managed to use the bulk of those [we’re glad to get them used up] to book a BA flight in Premium Economy [whoops, current name: World Traveller Plus]. That was timetabled to land at Dulles International at 20:30 – too late to consider a 2½-hr drive down to Richmond – so we chose an airport hotel [airmiles again] followed by a rental car [also airmiles] to drive down the following day.
Travelling to the States is quite different now from our last experiences. You now have to complete an online ESTA application [Electronic System for Travel Authorization] as opposed to the old Visa Waiver. That went well and it looked like they’d let us in.
Being a BA flight, we were departing from Terminal 5, a new experience for me. Since booking my car parking, some local genius has caused Heathrow car parks to suffer what is, in my view, a completely pointless name change: Long Term Parking is now Park & Ride whilst Business Parking is Park & Ride Plus (or is it “+”?) The net effect is that the car parks are exactly the same but the road signs are all now out of date. What on earth is the point of that? T5 Park & Ride was very busy with just a few scattered spaces that took some finding. We did find one at the extreme end of the area and boarded a transfer bus, whose driver kindly waited for us a moment or two.
Automated check-in and bag drop was successful after we found a friendly warm body to help us out after the bag check machine ran out of paper half way through processing my bag. I commented that I preferred warm bodies and she replied that they’d rather be the warm bodied checking us in, too.
Carrying absolutely nothing metal – I’d even taken off my walking boots – I set off the security scanner. After that, the “beam me up, Scotty” machine refused to scan me, so I had to have the magic wand waved over my limbs manually. My boots eventually reappeared having taken a wrong automated turn and I could re-dress.
We whiled away the time in T5 Weatherspoons. At £5,.50 a pint, it was unlike any other Weatherspoons that I’ve visited. Still, it was a pleasant enough environment, given that we had no lounge in which to hide, and their nachos were very good. The red Shiraz, B-ink [Barossa ink] was excellent, too; I can recommend it.
BA0293, an Airbus A380 super-jumbo, which I dislike, picked up a delay and was 1 hour late leaving. Such delays are not so bad if there’s no connecting flight to make. My QANTAS Airbus A380 to Sydney a few years back was two hours late when I did miss my connecting flight. I’m beginning to spot a pattern.
After an 8-hour flight, we finally landed at 21:30.
Dulles airport is like no other; at least, I don’t think it’s like any other. It is equipped with an enormous fleet of what I can best describe as bizarre “mobile lounges”, like very wide, large buses, whose passenger compartments wind up and down to aeroplane door height and maybe more to collect and deliver passengers between the to and the main terminal, i.e immigration. They look like something out of a sci-fi film set, or maybe a Gerry Anderson puppet show.
Our ESTAs worked well and immigration was a doddle – no more silly paper landing cards to fill out. We did, though have to have full sets of finger prints taken electronically by an unusually friendly immigration officer.
We were in. Furthermore, our bags turned up.
We had a booking at the Hyatt Place, 4 miles outside the airport. Our instructions were to phone, then hit “0” for the front desk to request a shuttle ride. My 2nd or 3rd attempt at an expensive international call [no roaming] worked. That is to it superficially worked. An American lady overheard my call and said she also was going to the Hyatt Place, had phoned twice and still had no shuttle.
We waited together. No shuttle continued to show up, during which time our new friend tried to make a further phone call, when another related shuttle bus showed up but for another Hyatt – the Hyatt. Corralled by our new friend, that driver agreed to take us to our hotel. The Hyatt Place shuttle was still sitting in the forecourt doing nothing. I let the American lady do the grumping at the front desk; they are so much better at it.
Our reservation worked, at least; we checked in and eventually arrived in our room at 23:00.
‘T was difficult getting to sleep.
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