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Yesterday I had the oppurtunity to fly through London Heathrow’s new Terminal 5. I didn’t really know what to expect but was definitely expecting the worst based on reports I’ve had heard in the news since it’s opening two months ago — long queues, useless baggage handling, lost luggage, etc. I attempted to reduce my exposure by doing online check-in the day before and utilize one of the terminal’s “fast bag drops”, this way I reduce one of the queues I would have to wait in. I was working in a time range that didn’t allow much room for error, arriving on the very first Heathrow Express train of the day (e.g. I couldn’t get to the airport any earlier unless I hired a car) and T5’s new conformance policies. For those that aren’t aware, “conformance” are a new set of policies put in place to help the airlines remain on schedule — this includes a policy that all passengers have thier boarding passes scanned at the security checkpoint and if there is less than 35 minutes prior to thier flight they won’t be allowed to clear security. This left me about and hour and fifteen minutes from the time the train arrives to needing to be pass security. I show up to the airport and surprisingly I have my bag checked and made it through security in less than 15 minutes… needless to say, I was impressed!

This was also the first time I had flown British Airways. From the time I had arrived at the airport in London until the time we on the ground in Rome, every BA employee was extremely nice and helpful. The pilots even made every effort to keep us aprised of the flight status (we were initially delayed by almost a half an hour but made up the time in the air). I would definitely consider flying them again in the future.

Anyways, that’s all for now… I gotta make it off to the Termini in order to catch the night train to Munich.

I’m back in the British Isles… by that I mean I’m in London. I haven’t been here in nearly three years and frankly things haven’t changed much. Although this time things seem to be a bit more exciting — the first day and half here I’ve seen a sworm of police type activity starting with witnessing a shoplifting/robbery on the first afternoon. It was ammusing that last night a police van started speeding down the street with lights and siren blazing only to get caught up in traffic — the solution — the officers jumped out and started sprinting down the road on foot… they caught-up with the “perp” and threw him in the back of a paddy wagon in a matter of seconds. On the not so entertaining side was the stabbing outside the pub last night — luckily I was not involved.

I saw a theater performance last night called “39 Steps” at the Criterion Theater. I love british humour… it was FUNNY AS HELL! It’s amazing to see an entire production that is so entertaining put on by just four actors (altough they each play multiple parts), it really gets you thinking about the skill involved in being a BRIALLANT actor/actress.

Anyways, about to run out of time at the internet cafe. More to come when I have more time, I need to go find out what there is to do in London when it’s raining cats and dogs — ice bar perhaps?

Damn, I haven’t blogged in awhile and now Greg is giving me crap for it so I figure I should say something…

I’m off in Oklahoma for the second time in the last three weeks; this time I traveled using an award ticket which took me through Detroit. This was my first time to the DTW and I have to say its impressive airport – I was especially amazed at the size of the “A” concourse which consisted of ~70 gates. To put the size in perspective typically airport trams operate to take you from one concourse to another though in this case the concourse is so long they have an indoor tram (monorail) that operates just the one concourse – a stop at each end and one in the middle. They also have an underground walkway (tunnel) that connects the A and B\C concourses; I found this cool as well with the dim yet colorful lighting throughout. In addition the airport was well kept and had plenty of clean restaurants and lounges to stop off at – I was there for a three and half hour layover so this was indeed important.

I was amazed that EVERY gate I passed was branded Northwest\KLM and though I realize it’s one of their main hubs it was still amazing to see the number of flights they operate daily. For instance I arrived around 3:30pm and Northwest still had four flights scheduled for departure for Amsterdam out of DTW – in Seattle we only have one such departure daily. Which brings up that I find it ironic that an airline called Northwest has a relatively small presence up in the Pacific Northwest –  yes, I have my frequent flyer program through them but that’s primarily because of their great flights to Europe and the fact they award miles when traveling on Alaska Airlines which tends to work well for me.

Anyways, that’s all I have to say… for now.

Sure, I signed up on a frequent flyer program last year thinking that I might actually get something out of it even though I was somewhat doubtful it would actually formulate. I’ve always been under the impression that the miles they award you are worthless and just meant to be peanuts they feed you just so that you come back for more… no pun intended.

Well I was chatting with my friend Greg today and he mentioned that he was headed to St. Louis this weekend courtesy of some “miles”. First off give me a break, like the Cardinals REALLY has a chance in championships!?!?!

Anyways, what he said still got me thinking… I have all these miles, can I actually use them? I figure let’s give it shot, after all I need tickets for the holidays anyways. In order to make a long story short — WOW, THESE THINGS ARE NEAT! I was able to book my holiday travel plans solely on miles (minus $7.50 that I needed to pay in taxes). Even with as odd of an itinerary that I had (SEA -> TUL, MEM -> SEA), it worked out extremely well. In fact they were able to get me in first class on one of my long duration flights!

Lesson learned; don’t doubt the power of the miles!

I was out from work most of this week, and come Friday I was pretty bored of just laying around the house so I decided to go up to Vancouver B.C. for the day. I ended up meeting up with Greg and Clodagh who were already up in the area and just spent the day relaxing. Greg and I went around and took our cameras out and about to try to get some “artistic” photos, I can’t say how successful we were but you can see the collection of photos I took here. I’m *quite* happy with how a few of them came out, definitely some of my favorites with the new camera thus far. Here’s the ones I like the best: Canada Place
Woman on Bench
Upside-down House Tipping Over
Keeping Warm on the Bench
Partial Vancouver Skyline 

  Later in the evening we went to this comedy club named “Yuk Yuk” which had some good talent. I found it quite funny being in a comedy club in Canada, especially when it came to the jokes berating America and it’s leadership. I have to admit, it is quite the joke… ;) 

Although I knew I was getting old prior to this expierence, the age really started to show last night; I was practically dead come 10:00pm. As Clodagh said, I gotta get my practice on so that I can last the longs nights during my upcoming Europe trip. Not sure how I practice this without ruining myself though… thoughts?   Overall it was a fun little trip and was definitely much needed break… yay!