First Class Travel

Sadly we had to leave our UK home to travel back to our current habitation in the US.  We were surprised when I went to check in to be offered a very cheap extra charge to upgrade us both to 1st class.  Normally I wouldn't bother, but having mixed feelings about leaving, and knowing the 10 hours flying and airport hassles can make the last act of our time away rather grueling, we went ahead and accepted their offer.

Part of me rebels against the privilege that this engenders but then we live a life of privilege compared with a large proportion of the world without thinking, but gliding through checking in bags, being the only people in the security line and then enjoying a very passable English cooked breakfast in the lounge made for a very pleasant start to our trip.  This continued on board the Airbus 380, a huge plane that holds nearly 400 people, here Leyna enjoys the space and the extra shows a most unusual high tea including clotted cream and jam scones served with a real pot of tea.

Unfortunately, we came down with a bump, see the other extra when we entered the passport control at Dallas/Fort Worth.  First of all, despite being inside, it was considerably hotter here, with temperatures around 38 Deg C but the welcome back here felt like a cattle market.  The fast track 'Global Reach' that some pay for had 3 passport officials servicing a handful of people trickling through and the swarming masses had 4 people dealing with the rest.  Not only was this causing huge queues of people, but unlike last time, they had completely removed all the automatic passport checking computers that were here last time... I did a little research while shuffling in this sea of people, and discovered that they have removed them all over the US because they don't verify facial identity.  My big question is...why on earth was something that presumably cost millions to install allowed to be installed when they hadn't even proved it worked properly?  Some company has presumably made a lot of money from the project only for all that expense to now be wasted.

Following this long process, we finally passed through one of the few control points and the gentleman told me to look at a camera and verified my name and let me go through without even looking at my passport.  Then the herds were gathering by the many baggage claim carousels to claim their baggage, but there was absolutely no board to tell you which of the 12 carousels our bags were coming out to.  This had many perplexed, and queues forming at the undermanned customer service desk asking where their bags were coming out.  We spoked to one lady who said she had been sent from one to another and her bags finally emerged on a carousel that had a completely different flight on it.  So we wandered around the carousels one by one to examine the individual boards and finally discovered where our bags would come out.  The carousel was heaving, presumably because a vast number of people from our 400 person flight were still stuck in passport control, and as a result bags were crushing each other and in some cases flying off the carousel because it was too full!  This is America, but it felt reminiscent of trips I have made to rather less advanced nations in the past like India.  The lack of organisation and understaffing had a profound effect on the mood of the masses and tbh we were glad to finally get out into the actual heat of the day before taking our Lyft ride back to our home.  Made a quick trip out to BG before it closed and now sipping on an iced coffee at what is effectively 3:30 am.  I'll stay up a little longer to try to make my brain think I am back on US time!  

It as a great trip, and I guess traveling will always present challenges.  We saw many people, had memorable moments, beautiful scenery, great weather on the whole and loved the time we spent with so many great people.  Looking forward to planning the next adventure next year.