England Prevails

So, here we are in Romania.

Wait a minute: THIS isn't Romania! This is LONDON. Yeah, my flight out of Los Angeles left 2 1/2 hours late, which meant no way to make my connection to Bucharest, and the next flight isn't until tomorrow. British Airways and I are no longer BFFs. In their defense, though, they gave me a $9 voucher for dinner at LAX -- enough to cover half the cost of a salad and glass of water, and really anyone who can't get by on half a salad is a wuss. Do you think people ate more than half a salad during the Great Depression? Because I will tell you: no, they did not. They maybe got a third of a salad, and they were happy.

So eventually my flight left and came to London, where I am now stranded overnight. I almost punched out an eight-year-old boy on the plane but held back. Movie reviews from the plane ride:

* Salt: Boy was this bad. This was the second bad Angelina Jolie movie I've seen in the last couple of months. Why are you bad, Angelina? We used to be so good together. You've changed.

* The Social Network: Just as good the second time around. Slightly less good when watched on a small TV in an airplane with an eight-year-old kid who keeps switching your reading light on and off.

* First 30 minutes of The Two Towers: Still great. Why didn't I bring these movies with me? Also: hey Mr. Pilot, you can't circle the airport at least through the Helm's Deep scene?

* Sleeping: Hooray for sleeping seven of the eleven hours of flight time.

After landing I was vigorously interrogated by the UK Border Control agents, even though I didn't punch that kid. The border guy was for some reason super-suspicious, and was all What time did your plane take off? Why are you going to Romania? Why was your flight delayed? I'm like, I don't really know, dude. The plane was delayed because it didn't take off on time. That is the extent of my knowledge. If you really need to know that badly, there is probably someone in this building who knows more about it than I do.

Eventually he let me through, so here I am in London where it's 33 degrees out and I am wearing a t-shirt and cotton pants. I've never been to London other than the airport. It seems very nice except for the way that everyone is always trying to kill you by driving the wrong way down the road. I noticed that gas is $10 a gallon once you do all the complicated math converting liters to gallons and pounds to dollars and petrol to gas, so I guess I would be pretty mad if I were them, too.

The hotel BA is putting me up in is fairly nice. I had a comical John Hughes fish-out-of-water moment when I got here. I asked the hotel guy how to get to my room, and he tells me it's on the first floor and down on the left. So I wander all over the goddamn hotel, carting my luggage behind me, before I realize that in the metric system "first floor" means "second floor." I'm convinced that is some sort of European joke they keep around just to hassle Americans. As soon as I walked off he probably gathered all the hotel staff in the security monitor room and howled with laughter. I don't know why we're bothering with invading second-world nations over oil when there are still assholes who do this walking around. Also: this hotel room charges me 5 pounds per hour for internet access, which is nearly 10 non-metric American dollars. Are we living in the Stone Age? Why not charge me for the electricity and the air while you're at it?

But England seemed nice for all of that. I wish I could have checked out London more, but I was in a hotel right near the airport, at night, with essentially no clothes, and a flight to catch early the next morning. So I contented myself with watching some BBC and then going to bed. Hail Britannica!