Sweet Home Alabama

I don't actually live in Alabama, but I was home this weekend. My brother turned 30 earlier this month, so Lori and I flew home to surprise him. We arrived Wednesday evening after the direct 9 hour flight from Heathrow. Normally that amount of flying would leave me grumpy and salty, but luckily the ridiculous amounts of money I have given United airlines the past year has paid off and they bumped me up to business. And not wanting to leave Lori behind with the bourgeois and criminals in economy class, I brought her along as well.

Now, it's intuitively obvious to even the casual observer that the difference between coach and business is night and day. If you've never been upgraded then you can't fully appreciate how nice it is, especially on the longer routes. It begins way before boarding in the baller's lounge, where you get free drinks and non-disgusting airport bathrooms. Once on board, you're greeted with champagne while the dude in row 47 walks by, staring up at the numbers hoping that they used some sort of Fibonacci sequence to number the rows and that he, too, is in business class. They also provide you a little goody bag with a sleeping mask and special socks (though I must admit the socks would likely disintegrate into a ball of goo if you ever tried to wash them). During the flight we enjoyed fillet in our nearly 180 degree recline chairs with massager functionality. And they mark your bag as priority so it gets put on the belt sooner. It really is the way to fly.

Don't get me wrong, business class was nice. But it's like prison compared to first class.. They don't have seats, they have cocoons. This is where fancy people like Sean Connery sit and eat caviar. I'm pretty sure during the safety announcements they said, "There are not seat belts for our first class passengers. In case of emergency, the first class cabin will be jettisoned from the rest of the aircraft and land safely in Tahiti." One day I hope to know the joy of international first class.

For the 4 days we were home, we gorged ourselves on Chipotle and and stocked up on clothes and other sundries at ridiculous American prices. And the aforementioned party was catered by Qdoba, which really enhanced my enjoyment of being home. All in all it was a good trip home, but we're back in London now. On the way to the airport, I had an epiphany. I was thinking most people are thrilled to fly here, kind of like when I was a tourist here a few years back. You save up and look forward to it, and it's a big deal. But now it's kind of annoying, and every time I fly here (which has been 4 time in 5 months now), it's a feeling of dread. It could be the 60 hour work weeks that wait or the bland food or just the fact that I'm returning "home", but I don't get that giddy feeling of going to some place new and exciting. Luckily we're headed to Paris in a couple weeks, the change of scenery will be nice.