As we all settled into our seats in business class on the British Airlines 777 (I was not going business in the damn 380, I don’t know who designed that turkey… more on that later maybe)… ahhh… gotta love going in business from the west coast to London, a bed is just so civilized, more on that in a minute, too…
The reconfigured 777 is quite startling on BA because they have 76 “Club World” (business class) seats – it goes on forever. They have a mere eight first class and only 132 “World Traveler” seats – AKA steerage – as well as 40 “World Traveler Plus” (eight across instead of ten across).
After experiencing BA, Granny says she still prefers American’s business class to Europe, but she’s biased because they do ice cream sundaes for dessert.
I thought BA was definitely superior, at least on the 777, the Great Champagne Catastrophe notwithstanding. They had one last glass they gave Granny, but I was served immediately after her and the flight attendant explained that she was sorry, but during the flight over they let the passengers imbibe far too much and they only had four bottles.
Four bottles divided by 76 people expecting a welcome glass of champers as they board?
I’m not sure Christ himself would’ve been able to fix that situation. Transforming tap water into cheapo red plonk is one thing but those vintners in the northeast of France, they’re wicked protective of their brand. Sparkling wine, maybe, but the real stuff? Divinity only goes so far.
That said, apparently the caterers came through with at least the California version. I was slipped a glass shortly before takeoff (not a big deal to me, I don’t drink but I get a glass so that.. well… Granny likes her bubbly.)
So… yeah, the 777 was good… you cannot beat having a bed, regardless of how narrow, on the flight across the Atlantic. I caught four hours in hour long segments, which made all the difference, considering I’m the designated driver. Poor Beloved only got a short sleep and Granny got none.
We got there and it was crazy quick getting through customs/immigration. As Granny and I are both dual nationals, we are now required to travel in and out of Britain on British passports (and we tried using our American ones to register with the airline because the Americans say we have to travel out and back in with our American passports… seriously?)
Because of the visa requirement now imposed on Americans (it’s cheap and easy, but if you ask me it was imposed as a result of the tariffs and other crap the US is forcing on the UK) – and the Brits of course don’t issue visas to their own citizens – our American passports didn’t have the visas attached and BA wouldn’t check us in without them.
ARGH. Oooookay, give the airline the British one. I always said if I ever left the US using my British passport, I wasn’t coming back… but as Beloved said, well, times have changed, huh?
Yep. Indeed they have.
Hoping the US will be cool about us showing up at the border in two weeks’ time without record of us actually leaving.
We did our usual car rental from the local agency, asking for a Clio Zoe (a small EV) and wound up with a Peugeot instead, also an EV.
As someone who rents cars fairly regularly for work, I can attest sometimes the only way you can find the black sedan is by hitting the panic button so the anonymous vehicle sends out a wail, allowing you to find the damn thing.
I don’t think we’ll have that issue with this car.
We tried to get a phone hooked up with Bluetooth so we could use Google Maps and other stuff, but as rentals often experience, others had preset all the bells and whistles to their own preference, and the controls on the Peugeot are not, shall we say, intuitive. Peugeot, emphasis on the poo.
At one point, the car inquired as to whether we wanted to reset the controls to the original settings, so Beloved, understandably, said yes.
Ah! Tres bien, mon ami!
Th’ hell?
Well, it really reset. Back to the original French (Peugeot, remember?). We can’t make heads or tails of any of the instructions the car is giving us now.
When I attended college, I discovered my inherent disadvantage at languages. (I suck at them.) Okay, well, one year of foreign language was required… one quarter of German, one semester of French, one of Spanish and I actually exceeded the goal.
And I’m useless in all three, unless the word has a Latin root, in which case I have a slightly increased chance of understanding it, but by that time, the speaker has not only addressed three other topics, they’re on their way out the door.
Worse yet, I was driving and this appears on the screen. Even with my poor command of the language I had a pretty reasonable idea as to the translation.
WTF?!! If the word “games” doesn’t clue you in, it translates to “eight new games available, play now!”
Okay… I’m… driving. I made Beloved snap a picture of this because I was so floored it would pop up while the car is moving.
Not only that, it stayed up while I was trying to park the damn thing and it was going beepy beepy beepy because I was “too close” to the fence.
I can only imagine what my father (or grandfather, for that matter) would say about this, no fans they of our neighbors across the Channel.
Examining Misadventures 