Doing Things the Nate Way

I would like it to be understood that I was happy to do this to get to the wedding.

Now to talk about the bookends of the wedding trip: the traveling. It has occurred to me lately that I am trying my damnedest to disprove the idea that I am a "smart" person. My best piece of evidence is how I got from from Belfast to Newark last week. I booked my London-Newark flight well before the Belfast-London flights, for whatever reason. The London-Newark flight left at 9am on Thursday, and there are no flights out of Belfast that early, so I flew to London on Wednesday. The hotel in Heathrow was closed by the time I got to it, and the public transit doesn't run at 5:30am when I would have needed to check in, so I spent the night in Heathrow. I mean this loosely, because I only took about four 40 minute naps on a bench. This was NOT a good time, especially when the cops woke me up at about 1:30 by looming over me. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had.

I flew to Detroit (more evidence for my case) the next morning, with virtually no sleep on the eight hour flight. I had heard immigration can be a little sticky even for Americans, but I was pleasantly surprised when the officer said: "Ireland huh? Cool." *Stamp*

The Detroit to Newark flight was easy. I had a little trouble finding the hotel shuttles at the airport, and found the wrong Hilton shuttle first, of course. It took about two hours to finally get to the right Hilton, which I left immediately after to get to Manhattan. I had been awake (except for the naps) for 40 hours when I got to dinner. I was up for another four hours until I got to Jean's apartment that night. By then I was barely coherent and probably didn't remember my own name.

I was never quite right all weekend, but I did my best. By the time I left I suppose my timezone was somewhere over Nova Scotia, possibly Maine. It's Wednesday afternoon now and I'm still not quite back on Belfast time.

I was a bit worried about immigration at Heathrow after their threat two months ago to turn me around if I didn't change some things, but it was clear I would only be in the UK for another three weeks, so I got through easily enough. I didn't need a single scrap of the documentation I had. Heathrow is unlike other airports in that it divides its terminal corridors to segregate inbound/outbound passengers. The way they shut doors behind the different groups before others can move reminds me a lot of sorting cows in a corral. In case it's not clear, I don't like Heathrow.

After flying about 9,100 miles in five days, I stumbled back into my room. This end of the trip had only taken about 26 hours door to door. If you ever need advice on a trip, and want to ask me, stop and think about what you're doing. Either I am not as bright as I've apparently fooled some into thinking or there is roughly a 100% chance of me dramatically screwing up the first time I try anything. There is definitely a better way to do this traveling business, and if I ever plan myself into a situation like that again, I am fired.