Musings from 10 Km Up
Blog
Writing this from about 30000 feet in the air, in a plane of course. My 7 am to Denver, USA was cancelled; instead I was rebooked from Edmonton to Calgary at 6am, wait three hours or so, then to Houston, from where I’ll have just enough time to make my originally scheduled Munich flight. The 7 hours’ layover in Colorado has shrunk down to about 1.5 in Texas: SHOULD be OK, if we’re not late! Joys of international travel!
This is the first time I’m moving between Tbilisi and Edmonton in either direction not in three flights. Two have proved vanishingly few and expensive to choose from, with the intervening airport list reduced to only Amsterdam or London (summer only to Edmonton). Four flights never were necessary, until this debacle. It only adds the ½ hour Edmonton-Calgary hop, but makes up for this blip with plenty more stress and hassle. I decided I’d better write the weekly article while flying, as it’s otherwise down time, and email it to GT from Houston rather than writing it enroute to Munich and not being able to email it on that long, late-for-deadline flight. So here we are. At least my laptop still has enough battery power to let me do the job.
The first short flight was my first in a prop plane in many years. I found myself sitting at a convenient spot to see the wheels retract after takeoff, then return for landing, which I videoed on my cell phone, smoke of touchdown and all, first time ever. The cool morning mist snaking along the North Saskatchewan River, nicely sidelit in yellow by the rising sun, also made for impressive shots. Scratched plastic window? Never mind! I moved back a bit, even, to include its edges in the frame, so there would be no doubt where I had been.
Note to self, remembered this time: That little plastic container of cream for my coffee? Shaking it while it’s sealed is fine, but always open it slowly and in in its upright position! Otherwise the air pressure discrepancy will make it spurt out uncontrollably onto my tray-table!
I refuse, outright, to pay Air Canada’s extortionate demands for either food or headsets. So I’m reduced to foregoing movies this flight, not having the required third-party earbud-only earphones, only ones which cover the ears. Must ask the reason for this rule, AND check whether the long flight to Germany has either free headsets or an allowance for the kind which I have! And in the case of neither of these possibilities, somehow find the time to buy the right kind in Houston.
Occasionally I glance at my near and further neighbors’ screens, furtively, to see what I’m missing. But I’ve also learned ALWAYS to have something to read, now almost exclusively on my phone, with the odd issue of WIRED or SciAm snuck into my “carrion” as a guilty pleasure. No more lugging around the world enough physical books to have a choice to read from, though; that just got ridiculously heavy and also simply too cumbersome.
When we touch down, assuming there’s enough time, I’ll log on to the airport’s Wi-Fi to email this story to Tbilisi, adding a few phone shots from the window series as illustrations. Until then, here comes the drinks trolley again, so I must wrap this up, as sugared coffee and keyboards mix rather poorly…
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with nearly 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
By Tony Hanmer