Journey to see the Boys - Part 2

Hola,

If you read Part 1 last Friday, the good news is that “what happened next” was quite Koopmans-y normal, except for one, unexpected bucket list check-marking event.


[We return you now to the moment when our intrepid (and dashingly handsome, at least to himself) traveler clicked Publish on the first of his 2-part, Irish trilogy.]






The writerly adrenaline bled out of me like a broken vodka bottle in a laptop bag. I wanted to sleep in the lovely dark, empty bar (wouldn’t have been the first time.) Instead I headed upstairs to the swanky level. Knowing the lounge wouldn’t open until 05:00 (another two hours,) I found a bank of five plugs dotted along a long table. With no one else around, I spread my stuff out like a German tourist hogging the pool chairs and recharged everything at once. It was terribly obnoxious, but kinda fun, too. Of course, if anyone had come along, I would have stacked all my shit on top of each other in one tiny corner and apologized profusely. As I do.

As the lounge opened, I joined the maddening crowd of six people ahead of me (didn’t they have homes to go to?) and wandered around the breakfast buff. (Too small to be called a “buffet.”) As I am a cultural genius, (when in Helsinki, do as the Finlandish do, I say,) I asked for a Danish, but got a blank look. I tried the local warm bread with cold stuff (meat? cheese?) in the middle. The bread-thing, however, smelled like my socks after 24 hours travelling (I compared). I fell back on a couple of recognizable croissants and headed for the gate.

There was another lounge over there (I love my dodgy free-lounge card) and working off the premise that it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, (but nowhere does it say “p.m.,”) I had a beer at 05:50, and as Katy Perry says, I liked it.

At the British Airways counter, I asked to switch from window to aisle and I landed the same row, too! Which seemed amazing, until I discovered I had the whole row anyway. Not wasting this minor miracle, I pulled a Philly cream cheese and spread myself over the three seats for the next 4 hours.


Once at Heathrow, I had 2.5 hours to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5, and after last night’s Swedish drama, I researched (imagine that) how to get there. I had a trek to trot but made it as boarding began for the flight to IAD. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy—and then I looked outside the window...


A Jumbo Jet.







FINALLY, I get to fly in a Jumbo. It's one of my favorite never-flown (until now:) airplanes, (I mean, it’s not as if you book online and add the filter, "Must be a Jumbo." This 747-400 series was gorgeous, and I didn’t care where I sat. (With seat 55G, I hoped that business class was really, really, really long, but helass pinda kaas, not a chance.)


I had the last seat.


Of the last row. (But I didn't care!)






Something symbolic about that methinks... troublemakers to the back?

Finally, after 42 hours door-to-door, I made it to the hotel, alongside 3 excited, arguing, talking-over-each-other boys.

For some reason I wasn’t tired anymore.