When you fly business, you don’t need Xanax

Flying is an increasingly annoying, often painful, experience. We do it out of necessity, to get to our destination, without any pleasure whatsoever. The man and I have even extracted, not even ethically, a prescription for Xanax to facilitate the process (give us the prescription or we’ll order it illegally over the internet). Flying across the US is not so egregious, five hours or so, with half a dose and a nicotine patch, but across the pond is something else. Eleven hours is intense for even the best of flyers. Enter the beg for upgrades.

Not cheap, to be sure, but oh so worth it if you get it. The seats fully recline, and on this particular flight (Northwest direct from Seattle to London), you get lumbar massage, foot rest, full recline, etc. The man and I forewent the Xanax in lieu of comfort, champagne, and real plane rest. So started the trip to the UK. Not complaining! This is seriously the way to fly, and airlines should stop with this stupid veal-like coach experience. Coach is positively torture!

This trip is going to be interesting. Only solid itinerary points are the arrival and departure points to and from London, the arrival/departure dates to and from Bristol (to see Janna and Jules) and everything ad hoc in between. We already encountered our first obstacle and need for adaptation when we discovered we couldn’t buy a BritRail pass once we were in the country, nowhere was this noted on the Web site. Ah well. Point to point will probably be better in the long run, or so I'm telling myself.

So far nothing earth shattering. Arrived in London Saturday, checked into Paddington hotel (not bad, especially compared to last time in Paddington), ate/drank in neighborhood pubs, and booked train travel to Glasgow for tomorrow.