As I write this, we’ve been in the US for about 36 hours. As usual, it’s been weird, funny, tragic and mundane by turns.
When I married Christine in 2000, I had pledged to her that we would come back to the States whenever we could to see her friends and family, and happily it’s a pledge I’ve never really had to break - unless you count Covid, and even then we only missed a single year. I wish I could take the credit for not breaking that pledge, but as transatlantic trips have become more and more expensive, Chris has paid for more and more of the flights and associated logistics, so I’ve been helping more indirectly than directly with getting us over here regularly - every year of late - purely by concentrating on paying the bulk of the regular bills and enabling her to pool our resources to make it feasible. All the same, I’m glad, and relieved, that I’ve never had to disappoint her.
Our trips are never not fun, but some trips have inevitably been more enjoyable, or more noteworthy, than others. This time around, the most notable thing about flying out here is that we were able to do it First Class (or Upper Class, as Virgin Atlantic name it). It is ridiculously expensive to fly Upper Class - this is more of a comment on the crazy cost of everything than a reflection on the people that choose to (and are able) to afford to do it regularly. We didn’t buy Upper Class tickets at the outset; Steen discovered that Virgin Atlantic run a scheme where passengers can bid on being upgraded from Economy to Upper Class, and the lucky few who put the highest bids are able to do so. And so it was with us: Steen had never flown Upper Class before, so decided to put in the lowest bid she could for this lottery, and we got lucky.
I had flown First Class once before, but that wasn’t even deliberate; upon flying back from the US on my second visit in the summer of 2000 via Air India, I was just settling into my seat when a stewardess asked me if I would be willing to move to First Class, as they unexpectedly needed a single Economy seat at short notice. And so a somewhat bewildered 28 year old hippy ended up sat in First Class, waited on hand, foot and finger, and became pleasantly (some might say comfortably) numb via a succession of very welcome G&Ts. (Not to mention the really rather excellent in-flight curry, always a highlight with Air India.)
Anyway, we only had the vaguest ideas about what our promotion to Upper Class would mean for our journey. Obviously we’d looked at online videos of what Upper Class seats looked like, and realised we’d have access to the Upper Class Lounge at Heathrow, but what we hadn’t really anticipated is just how much Upper Class tickets would grease the wheels along the way. Our first inkling was at check-in. We’d arrived early, but were steeling ourselves for much the same bag drop & security rigmarole as we generally experience, only to discover that not only was it done a lot faster, it was a lot less hassle, too. I mean, I’m usually red-faced and swearing by the time I’m done with security - not least because I always seem to set off some hidden, silent “this guy calls himself HippyDave. Check his bags! Ask him to walk through the scanner a dozen times!” alarm. Not this time. Other than dumping the contents of my pockets in a tray, taking off my belt and standing for a moment on the scanner platform, I was done and processed inside of 10 minutes - a process that normally takes anything up to an hour. Same with baggage drop earlier: we were ushered through a door into some hidden Freemasons-style open-plan area with a few desks in it, and barely have I pulled out my passport and handed over the bags than we’re told we’re done and given the opening time of the Upper Class Lounge.
Of course, the astonishing efficiency of our progress meant that we actually had to sit outside the lounger for almost 20 minutes before it actually opened. But then… well, it was almost like walking into a James Bond film set - an open space where uninformed staff patrolled, waiting to satisfy our every whim (mostly coffee and bacon-related in our case, but still) whilst a staggering number of different food and drink items passed before our eyes. It made quite a refreshing change from queueing at Costa hovering to get a tiny table that would barely hold Steen’s coffee cup, lemme tell you.
Anyway, this set a pattern - and, other than a truly embarrassing episode where the corridor along which we were walking towards our gate was temporarily closed off to allow people disembarking unexpectedly from a gate a few spaces closer to the hub of the terminal (the corridor was closed off from the area ahead for nearly 20 minutes, and people trying to get to gates further along the corridor were getting seriously irate), we soon found ourselves ensconced in our strangely cosy little ‘cockpits’ in the Upper Class area of our flight.
I have to admit that, ridiculously expensive as it was (and would have been more so if we’d booked Upper Class upfront), it made the seven-and-a-quarter hour flight seem a lot more agreeable and, more importantly, shorter. The food was better, I could stretch my legs all the way out, which meant that I avoided several hours of nasty leg cramps this time around… even the damn in-flight entertainment system screen was bigger (and touch sensitive to boot). No sooner were we in our seats than we were being handed something agreeably alcoholic (I forget what my reddish-pink concotion was, but it had tequila in it, which was fine with me), and the level of service we received was undeniably better than which we’d ever had before. So although it pains me somewhat, I have to admit that, albeit expensive, Upper Class is a generally much kinder and hassle-free process than we’d ever had whilst crossing the Atlantic previously.
I was dreading running the gauntlet through JFK - I remain convinced every time I walk up to the immigration desk that I’m going to be sent to some CIA black site somewhere whilst Steen goes on to enjoy the rest of her holiday (it hasn’t happened yet, although the way in during our 2021 trip was pretty close. There’s a tale there, but another time, I think). But I needn’t have worried - JFK and immigration was a breeze this time (as it usually is, in fairness). The next leg of our journey saw our luck run out, though. We leapt into a taxi outside JFK and asked to be taken to Grand Central station, where we would get a train to finish our journey north. All well and good, except that as the trip went on, it became more and more apparent that our driver had no idea where Grand Central was. Or at least, not Grand Central train station. We ended up dropped outside the Grand Central Hyatt hotel, and it was only then, at the last minute, that our driver appeared to understand his error. As he accosted a passer-by and asked them if he was in the right place, it became clear that we were just a few doors down from the train station. But for a minute there I had visions of us getting straight into another taxi.
From there, things got easier again. Although - a hint for other travellers here - we did discover something at Grand Central that will make return visits to the station a lot easier. Steen has limited mobility at the moment due to a duff knee (an old injury exacerbated by the joys of arthritis), and we always dread dealing with Grand Central because there’s nowhere to bloody sit. Seriously, a station that large and no seats - and if you decide to say, “Enough of this, I’m gonna sit on the stairs for a minute, I’m altogether shagged out”, the security staff just move you along. Well - after another confrontation with security, this time we were told that there is actually a place you can sit and wait for a train - in the Station Master’s Office. There’s a lovely little room there - granted, for a station that size, it could probably be bigger, but they’re hardly drawing attention to it - filled with benches where the knackered and less mobile of us can sit and wait for platform numbers to appear next to our trains on the screens, a lot more civilized than shuffling from perch to perch in the concourse and watching a screen that’s probably about the same distance away as London is to Belgium.
So it was that we got onto our train and trundled - much like in the UK, US trains are in no hurry to get anywhere - two hours northwards, arriving at Poughkeepsie train station what seemed like three days after leaving the UK, but what was in actual fact - thanks to the time-dilation effects of inter-time zone travel - only about four hours after we left London. Perhaps the biggest shock, though, was stepping out into 99 degree temperatures after leaving England, where’s it’s been a balmy high sixties/low seventies for a fortnight or more now. I swear I actually smelt my skin crisping up likes a battered sausage in a deep fat fryer.
Now, about 18 hours after arriving, we’re almost acclimatized to the US - a thunderstorm this afternoon has helped cool things off a bit, and whilst we’re both better with the jet lag today, Steen is asleep as I type this and I can barely keep my eyes open. But we’re looking forward to another month of shenanigans and re-connecting with friends and family alike; a welcome oasis of self-indulgence after a few very busy months. :-)
More misadventures in America coming soon, I’m sure.
I hope you have Upper class for the return journey too !
Welcome to the heat...lol. Looking forward to our visit in Lancaster. Entertaining blog about your trip.