Launch minus 5 hours: Our newly-discovered airport taxi firm was 1 minute fashionably late, arriving at 04:01 hours. Just over an hour later found us first in the queue for Delta Airlines at Heathrow's Terminal 4. Certainly faster than star Trek's teleporter! With some trepidation Linda asked how much an upgrade to "Premier Economy" would cost? Around 160 Euros, or £120 cash for the two of us (just over 20% of the original booking if we did this both ways). We took it on the basis of the prominent desk advert that promised to make our flight more "enjoyable & comfortable", increase our leg room from 31" to 35", and offered us a complimentary drink. In effect, Delta's offer tacitly admitted that their "economy" class was anything but comfortable, that their "upgraded" Premier class was in fact the same as most bog-standard Arab airlines, and their "complimentary" glass of warm Californian Chardonnay was the most expensive in history. Oh yes, the icing on the cake was that the check-in staff neglected to inform anyone that the in-flight entertainment was not working. Had been broken since the aircraft had left Atlanta on the flight out, in fact. So, no Iron Man 3 for David then!
Launch plus 3 hours: Sure enough, no Iron Man. Having entertained ourselves with some unattended props at Terminal 4 (see picture below) and topped up the previous night with a couple of Stellas and Bombay Sapphires at an airport bar we find ourselves in "Premier Economy" Class writing this rubbish and running out of things to moan about. Luckily, having read all the atrocious reviews regarding American airlines, I uploaded this handy little gizmo with the Thor and Green Lantern movies. Hmm. I see that just writing this has drained the battery by 10%. Maybe I'd better wait a bit until I'm really bored!
Launch plus 11 hours: Ah well, having availed ourselves of more "complementary" drinks (Linda was especially fond of the 56cl bottles of 49% proof Bombay Sapphire) and luxuriating in the extra legroom, our 9 hour journey to Atlanta weren't that bad. We were somewhat dreading the Immigration Experience in Atlanta, so much so that I extended our stopover before travelling onward to San Antionio to over 5 hourse to ensure we met the connection with a minimum of stress. Just to make a fool of me and my rampant paranoia the whole bloody airport was empty. We were through baggage reclaim, immigration, baggage redrop, Customs and the eternally redundant second security check in less than a single hour! So here we are in a relatively empty colossal airport bar drinking $6 draught beers waiting for our connection. Thank God they fed us solids on the plane! Nearly there!
Launch plus 24 hours: Yes, we've been awake that long, folks. Flagging a bit after nearly six hours waiting to board the San An plane we were pleased to know that the last phase was only 1 hour and 40 minutes long. At least when we arrived there were no more wretched Immigration, Customs or Security lines to go through -- travel as it is supposed to be! What rounded the day off fantastically was the smiling faces off Gary & Sarah waiting at our hotel check-in to whisk us off for a late night pub crawl. After 26 hours of conciousness, we finally crashed into deep, deep sleep. The End.
Oh, apart from the picture Linda took earlier at Heathrow. Caption reads: "After the shock resignation of Peter Capaldi, new hopefuls audition for the Time Lord role".
