Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Planes are interesting places. A large group of diverse individuals pile into one small place, sit squished together, and all hope that this mystical flying machine doesn't fall from the sky, and instead deposits us in the same place, safe and sound. An entire group with the same intentions: get from A to B safely.

Transcontinental flights bring an entirely more diverse crowd than the four-times daily flight from Chicago to St. Louis. There were a variety of people waiting to get on the plane: German's heading home, military folk on the way to assignment, other various Europeans on the first leg of a longer journey, and this one family from Texas who obviously hated their child. Here he was dressed in sleeping pants riddled with every pro-football team, cowboy boots, a puffy jacket and a child-sized stetson. I'm fairly certain that hat counted as a carry-on item. Hopefully, when he is still dressing like that as an unpopular adult, some sweet woman will gather him up from whatever rodeo he is clowning for, take him home, and show him what outside clothes really look like.

I had the unfortunate circumstance of sitting in the back of the economy cabin, in the middle seat of the five-person row. On my left was a tall black man on his way home to Germany to resume his work with the military. On my right was an old Frenchman who was, I am sure, dying of something highly contagious. When I first took my seat, just the black man was there, and a purse on my right, or rather, what I assumed was a purse. A small, black, patent-leather, faux snake skin shoulder bag = purse as far as I am concerned (this coming from the proud wearer of a murse). Imagine my surprise when this elderly man, wearing a stocking hat on the already boiling plane, took up his purse, and took his seat.

From the very beginning, I knew that the black man on my left and I were going to get a long just fine. He was really courteous, probably to a fault, as he didn't crush the annoying Floridian who got on the plane talking loudly about how she hates sitting next to people on airplanes. She complained from take-off to landing. He smiled and joked with her, while I turned my iPod up, to drown out the asininity.

The Frenchman spoke only French and ignored my presence. It was if he imagined himself alone in the airplane: he never covered his mouth as he coughed and hacked up phlegm, he stretched into my seat, took up the entire arm rest, and snored really loudly. I took all of this with a grain of salt, after all, he was French. But when his legs started to encroach my limited leg room, I grew hostile.

For those of you who don't remember much about me: I am all legs. My hips connect just under my shoulders. Usually, I have to sit sideways in the seat, with my back pressed against the seatback, just so my legs fit in the aisle. And this man wanted some of that precious space. Granted it was my fault: I hate when I touch strangers, especially when my leg is pressed against the leg of a stranger. So each time his would fall heavily against mine, I would shift to the left until his knee was under my tray table. Finally, I raised up my tray table, and his leg fell into the vacancy, as his entire body seemed want to do. Then, none to gently, I dropped my tray table on his knee. If it bothered him, he didn't show it, but he did move out of my space, allocating precious inches to me. I repeated this twice more throughout the flight until we landed in Frankfurt.

From there, I walked what I assume was a mile through Frankfurt International Airport while it is presently under construction. Rarely have I felt the sheer terror that must go through the mind of a lab rat in a maze. I had limited time to get from one end to the next, and the signs all warned of lengthy stays at security check-points and passport services. Getting from one terminal to the other would have been a difficult task had all the signs been in just English, and had there been a series of personalized light-up arrows peppering the floor and walls. As it was, most signs in big German lettering with smaller English lettering, and horribly misleading signage, I made it to the plane with enough time to buy 8 euros worth of minutes on the T-Mobile hot spot, use one of them to tell my mother I landed, and then run onto the plane. Or, rather, what I thought was the plane.

Instead, I boarded a bus, squeezed on with several Germans, a few British and a smattering of American military folk. We were driven across active tarmacs, between planes landing (a little too closely, I thought) to our tiny Airbus plane on waiting for us on the runway. I was in the last row of the airplane with a window seat. The man in the middle, some German business man who checked no bags, carried on no bags, and wore an expensive suit (but still rode economy) moved to an open seat once the plane doors were sealed. On the outside of my row sat an American jet pilot on his way to the Finland from Dubai (a city known for building it's own island that looks like the bones of a fish). He was on leave, and was going to have, and I wondered how he found flying in a jet under someone else's control. He smiled, and walked away, uninterested in my stupid questions.

Heathrow International Airport was just as under construction as Frankfurt, so I was again forced to walk for miles until I could get my bags. This made me slightly cranky, but I was satiated by the sight of my bags present on the belt. I changed over some cash I had into pounds, took my bags and went to find the tube.

It was on the tube that I realized two things concurrently: 1) I was riding London's main mode of public transportation through the heart of the city at 8:30 in the morning with all my luggage; 2) my bag, packed full of my underwear, had split a seam. Taken one at a time, I might not have wanted to cry, but seeing as both were true I was suddenly struck by how bad an idea this was.

Had I been riding the Blue Line inbound and a family of Spanish tourist climbed on with all their luggage, taking up valuable commuter space, I would have been at the front of the line of people dismembering their corpses. Thankfully, like their signage, the British are far more concerned with etiquette and I escaped the hour long tube ride with only a few harsh stares and head-shakes. I transferred from the Victoria line at Leicester Square (pronounced, I believe: Lester, which didn't seem right, so I almost didn't get off). A short trip there dropped me at Euston Street train station where I was to catch a Virgin Train (named after the Virgin company, not because the British made some assumptions about my sexual exploits) to Birmingham-New Street.

The National Trains are, while expensive, super well maintained. It was a two hour train trip through a surprisingly snow covered English country side to Birmingham and one of the two conductors, who I thought was wearing a robe, came through four times for trash. Having ridden the Amtrak train to Monmouth and Carbondale, I never recalled such treatment for public space. In fact, I would not be surprised to see the conductors creating as much trash as the riders.

At Birmingham-New Street, the problem with my bag became problematic. The tiny rip of no more than a few inches had expanded to the entire length of the bag. There for anyone to see, was my underwear (not all of which I am proud to own as an almost 30 year old man). I rigged that bag to lay on top of the other, and hurried to the train to Aberystwyth.

This was an Arriva train that made stops at several small towns along the way. Most of the ride was generally like Ohio: slight, rolling hills; large, mostly unpopulated fields; lots of sheep. But unlike in Ohio, there was, thankfully, no Welsh equivalent of Cleveland or Cincinnati.

As we neared some town that had 34 consonants in the name and two vowels, sounding not unlike one of Tolkien's elves sneezing, the landscape suddenly changed. Hurriedly, mountains (well, I consider them mountains, because I'm from Illinois) shot out of the ground. It really seemed like the ground was desperate to get as high as possible because the field would run flat for some distance, and then suddenly turn abruptly upward, raising to a few hundred feet above sea level, and then dropping off and heading sharply back towards the ground level. It was like nothing I had seen before.

On the four hour journey from Birmingham-New Street, the Welsh packed onto the train, some heading back to work, others seemingly heading to nowhere. Our train would stop between two fields, and a handful of weather-worn Welsh would sternly pile off the train, as if to say, "It's not much to look at but it's home." There was literally not much to look at.

At the train station in Aberystwyth, I had some time to wait until Will, my supervisor, could collect me and drop me at my dorm, and maybe take me to eat. While I waited, I noticed a second hand shop attached to the train station, filled with luggage. Have you seen that part of Big Fish where young Ed Bloom wanders through the forest to find the lost city, and hanging from the one power line is a bunch of shoes. Ed Bloom is left to wonder where all the shoes came from. I sat with my back to the wall, making sure that I was not murdered, all my stuff sold remarkable close to the crime scene.

When Will picked me up, we tossed my stuff in the taxi, and made our way to the Accommodations Office on campus, which the taxi driver, oddly enough, knew about. There, the security guard seemed perplexed that I wanted keys to my room, and gave me a look that said, "I know nothing is behind me, but I will look anyways, because I like being right." I know that look; I've worked retail: "Do you have any books on Buddhist migrant workers in Mexico?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Let me look..."

Thankfully, my keys were there, and Will and I tried to find the footpath across. I tried, in vain, to carry my 50lb bag like one carries a child, so that my underwear would stay securely in the bag. Eventually, I was forced to set it down, checking bag periodically to make sure all my stuff made it to the room. Will rolled with this remarkably well.

Despite doing his graduate work at Aberystwyth, graduating in 2002, and living not to far from Campus, Will and I got lost trying to get up the hill across the footpath and to my dorm. As he said, "I had meant to better learn the campus..." We walked through a small patch of trees, got sidetracked by a barbed-wire fence, and eventually, by the grace of God alone, found the footpath.

After a brief meal, and some shopping, Will left me to my room. I made the bed with my new sheets and comforter, and sat to recollect the evening. My thoughts went like this: "That was a long trip. I wonder..."

The rest was darkness. I left my house at 2:34 PM CST. My first time to sleep was at 7:00 PM GMT. Suffice it to say, I slept very well that night, and well into the morning.