So Just How Long DOES It Take To Get To England, Anyway?

Let's start by saying that this was not supposed to be the Bataan Choir Death March Tour 2006. It sounded simple and easy, a nice week in England going to Cambridge and London, singing two concerts, meeting with some singing Cambridge Alums and doing some more Russian War songs. Easy stuff, calm, relaxing.

However, last Saturday, we started hearing the refrain from the Weather News Guys that "It's coming! It's coming! Panic, panic, panic! It's gonna snow!" We thought this was a bit panicky, as we were no longer in greater Washington DC, where this level of fear accompanies any flakes, and we were in the northeast where they know how to deal with it. However, we had packed very light ("I'm packing ike we're going on the space shuttle -- I'm not carrying this crap around" -- my trip roommate), and when one packs light, it's usually the footwear options that get tossed. So as our one precaution, my roomie and I decided to take to go out and get some proper snow booties, because we suspected we'd have to walk across the green a few times with luggage in order to travel. It turned out to be the only expected difficulty in the journey, although we later had to carry the damn things around the entire trip, as you can't find cheap snow boots in half an hour late on a Saturday afternoon, so some very nice but not quite cheap North Face boots were purchased and cost just too much money to abandon.

Trains
So with the boots purchased, we wake up on Sunday morning to a blizzard. We received reassurance from our tour folks that British Airways has not canceled the group's flight (although they had canceled mine the night before, so I had been rebooked to travel with the group), so it's an overpriced Sunday brunch at the hotel, and at 10 am we start off in over a foot of snow, dragging our baggage across the Green to the rehearsal hall/meeting point. There were no cars or taxis going anywhere. We get to the hall, and we discover that while the plane may be flying, no bus company in Connecticut is willing to come to where we are and pick us up to take us to JFK. They won't release our buses. After much conferring, the new plan is to get everyone to the train station, get a group ticket on Amtrak (and in this post 9/11 world, try getting a "group reservation" without having everyone's personal information), get to Penn Station in New York, have some buses meet us in New York and take us to the airport. So we start figuring out how to get 100 people to the train station in a blizzard. Some people have rental cars and were going to drop them off at the airport anyway, so we pack off the most vital (eg, conductor) and most elderly people in those for a direct trip. to the airport. We find some intrepid taxis and spouses of the housekeeping staff at the hotel who shuttle the rest of us to the train station.

After about half of the people arrived at the train station, and one of our tour managers is doing miracles with Amtrak, we get word that we got one bus company to release two buses. So after making my "what's going on" announcement at the train station at five minutes to one (on these trips, I work as a choir wrangler, because of my ability to herd cats and to say "sit down, shut up, and wait for me to tell you what to do" with a smile and you not realizing that's what I've just told you to do), we get called to find out....I revise the plan at four minutes to one.

Buses (I)
So at about 1:45, two buses pull up at the train station, and we load them up. As a weird aside, I get on my bus and the driver looks familiar. I can't understand a word he's saying, and I remember thinking 'he really reminds me of Al Hebede Hebede He He He" who used to drive the Glee Club on tour and got stranded with us in the blizzard of 1988, when we had to become wards of the State of South Carolina when they shut down the interstate" -- the most legendary bus driver ever, both because of the circumstances and our complete inability to communicate. So after a few minutes the tour manager asks him what his name was, and he says "my name is Al", and sure enough, it was him. We start our journey to JFK.

About ten minutes into the trip, we get a call from one of the cars that had set off to the airport earlier -- those folks were having some kind of trouble, so we arrange to meet them at one of the rest stops on the interstate. The roads aren't that bad, but when we get to the appointed rendezvous point, the car isn't there. We wait for a while, and more phone calls are made. "We're really just up the road..we'll be there in five minutes". About fifteen minutes later, they finally pull up, and we continue our journey to the airport.

Planes (I)
At four-thirty, only about half an hour off of our original pre-storm plan (which had us leaving our rehearsal venue at 3, rather than 10, but still), we get to the airport. Which is closed. But BA continues to reassure us that the plane (scheduled for 7 pm) will be going, as the airport should open by then. So we check in, although my carefully planned aisle seat has long since disappeared, and I'm now jammed in against the window, which on a BA flight is tantamount to torture (they have the smallest seats in the industry), but at this point, I'm like "it's only a six hour flight, I'll deal".

A fun thing to do is to sit at airports and listen to the announcements -- you realize that names are a dime a dozen, as while I'm sitting there, I hear the names called to report to one plane service desk or another, and most of my closest friends from home are 'called', although I know where they are, and it's not at JFK. There was one name called from someone I knew was flying that day, but I also knew that he wasn't going to be in NY, and if there had been any problems that day, there's no way his plane would have been diverted TO New York, as all the planes were being diverted FROM New York. Although I will ask him tomorrow if he had in fact been there, because it had been that kind of journey. Although I'm pretty sure it wasn't, as right after they called that name, BA called my name to tell me absolutely definitively that I was going to get that inner seat. I had been wandering over to the gate where his name had been called just to check it out (and it gave me something to do, as I was really bored at the airport), but then I headed back to the BA desk to get the news. While his name might be a dime a dozen, mine isn't (can you imagine two of me out there? Way too scary to contemplate), so I'm pretty sure he would have been just as bored and would have come over to find me, because with my name, the odds were good that it was actually me and I was even supposed to be in that airport.

At about 8 pm, they board us on the plane. It's been de-iced, and the earlier BA flight, also a 747, has boarded about an hour earlier and pushed back. At 8:30, we push back. Yay. It looks really evil on the runway, but there are two runways open, only one of which can handle a loaded 747 in bad conditions. We get on the line, but then the pilot pulls us out, as there is something he wants a mechanic to check out, and he wants us de-iced again. After about 45 minutes, we're back in the queue. And then we get the news that a Turkish Airlines plane made a wrong turn on the long runway, and gone into the dirt/mud and needs to be moved. A few of the smaller planes are taking off and landing on the other runway, but not us. The 777 pilots decide they can make it out on the shorter runway, but we have to wait for the Turkish plane to be cleared. At about 2 am, we see a Korean Air 747 take off. This is good, right? But no, at 3:15 the pilot gets on the PA to say that the flight wasn't going to go that night (Nice of him to finally tell us, I had pretty much figured it out at 10 when the Turkish plane blocked the runway and realized that the crew was going to run out of hours and we'd go too long between plane de-icing). He says that only the Korean Air 747 pilot had decided to risk it -- all the BA pilots, plus Qantas, Cathay Pacific and a few others said "nuh-uh". And this is why I always choose to fly major Western airlines -- all bitching about seats aside, I want to know that if my pilot doesn't want to fly his plane for safety reason, he will feel free to do so, and his company will back him up. His plane, his call, right decision.

There's also another problem -- because flights had been canceled and grounded right and left, there's no gate for us. The one open BA gate for 747s went to the plane that loaded an hour before we did. So we have to wait for them to start moving around 747s in the middle of the night to get us a slot. Did I mention we haven't been fed? The pilot hadn't wanted to start cabin service, as if we got a window, were were going to have to go, and after five hours, the hot meal is considered "unsafe" and not to be served. But at about 4;30, they bring us the 'breakfast" which is basically a pile of sugar -- fruity yogurt ("with high fructose corn sweetener, fructose, sucrose, dextrose, and oh yeah, a little yogurt"), white blueberry "muffin" and "enhanced" OJ. Thank heavens I had had some provisions in my bag, as I didn't think it would be a good idea to go into some kind of insulin rush in those circumstances (more on that later). At 5:30, nine and a half hours after getting on the plane, we finally disembark -- exactly from where we had left.

Buses (II)

So now we're inside. BA said "We're really sorry, but there are no hotels in the New York area with rooms. Take all the blankets and pillows and make yourself as comfortable as possible." No decision is made as to whether we get back on that plane or whether they will get us another flight. So we set up shop in the BA terminal at JFK. BA gives us a whole $15 of food vouchers (which at JFK means two bottles of water and a small salad). Woo. But that's okay, because the terminal had already been pretty much cleared out of food, and we had to wait a few hours before the resupply came in. The tenors and basses decided that they needed to practice our Russian music, so they started chanting the linguistically complex lyrics to get the tempo. It's a bit unsettling to hear a horde of very tired older people at six am chanting Slavic words -- very Hare Krishna. Which was fine, as an equally punchy compatriot of mine decided to pull out his guitar and we sat there singing songs from Hair. I don't think we endeared ourselves to anyone who wasn't part of our group. At about 10 am, we're told "your plane is waiting for a part, which should be coming in at 1:30". Okay, so I guess the pilot really didn't like that plane, which makes me wonder why he thought it was okay to go at 10 pm the night before on an icy runway.

At 11:15, we're told "your plane is out of service. All the other flights from New York can't take 125 people." So the tour leaders start working the phones, and the other passengers on the plane start really pitching major hissy fits -- while they were actually right (passengers in transit and grounded take precedence over all other passengers, but the airlines never observe that -- they figure we're already pissed off, so why get a whole bunch of other people pissed off if they can just keep pissing off the same people over and over again?), it made for a very bad vibe. The choir herders and conductor decide that this is a good time to start rehearsing, to at least keep our group calm. So the chanting is replaced by a full choir rehearsal of Rimsky-Korsakov, Vaughn Williams, and Soviet war songs. Whatever other folks in the terminal weren't already upset suddenly were overcome with a fierce loathing for us. At noon we're told -- "Guess what? You're going to Philadelphia!". It seems that there was room for our group on two flights out of Philly that night, so now we're waiting for BA to get us some buses. At two pm, they turn up, we pick up our luggage from baggage claim, and we get onto the buses for a nice drive to Philadelphia! Actually, it turned out to not be so bad, as I don't sleep on planes, don't sleep on terminal floors, but I do sleep on buses. So I had the only two hours of sleep of the entire trip. I'm positively refreshed.

Planes (II)

We arrive at Philly, have to check in again, and we have to split up the group between two flights -- a 6 pm and a 10 pm. We decide to throw all the singers on the first flight, so that there's some hope that we can sing when we finally get to England. We get another $10 in food vouchers (although in Philly, that's a much bigger salad -- with meat and everything -- and a diet coke), although we have about 20 minutes to spend them. We have all learned, though, and shove food down our throats since food has been a trouble point, and we've already eaten through our personal emergency reserves. They start boarding our plane, and this time it's a 777 with an aisle seat, so I'm moving up in the world. I'm also hoping to move up into the sky at some point, but the two days' events have taught me not to expect very much. At 6:45, we start taxiing down the runway, and our group bursts into applause. About three of us simultaneously exclaim "Stop that! We're not off the ground yet.", and the group quickly agrees and stops clapping. About 30 seconds later both sets of wheels leave the earth, and we say "Okay, NOW we're off the ground". Applause then ensues.

The flight seems fine, really strong tail wind, no turbulence etc. The food comes, and it's actually quite tasty. (Props to BA's catering -- all the meals, except those breakfast 'snacks' tasted way better than most airline food that I've had recently). I settle in, start watching some random TV shows on the seatback TV screen, and prepare for a nice journey to Heathrow. About two hours outside of London, though, I notice two male pursers standing outside one of the restrooms on the other side of the plane in a position I can best describe as "protective". I see a lady come out (not one of ours), and then it looks like she's got oxygen or breathing into a paper bag. And then I see her go down -- collapsing on the floor. One of our doctors gets up (the same guy playing the Hair songs on theguitar several hours earlier) and offers his assistance. At first BA says no, as I guess they've had problems with people claiming to be physicians, and they call MedAlert, but eventually the woman's family says it's okay for our doc to look at her. I'm on the other side of the plane, so I don't know what the issue is, but looking at the flight map, I realize that the odds are quite good that we are going to put down in Dublin, especially if it's some kind of cardiac arrest. It just seemed like that was the way this trip had been going so far. I see our doc on the phone to the cockpit, there's much talking, but thankfully instead of descending, we ascend to 38,000 feet and really start booking -- no more dodging turbulence, just straight to London. It turns out that this was a good thing, because the planes are usually stacked at Heathrow at 6 am (opening time), and you can circle for an hour. Our pilot declared a medical emergency, and we land as soon as we get there and are taken to a different part of the airport where the ambulance is waiting. We all sit on the plane for 20 minutes while they get the lady out. Afterwards, I ask the doc what it was, and he said "she had a diabetic episode and started going into a coma. She came out of it enough for us to decide to go to London." (See what I mean about that breakfast?) He also jokingly said "I also realized that if I decided to put us down in Dublin, I'd have all 99 of you on my ass the rest of the trip". Good call, dude.

Finally, we get to the terminal, get on some buses, and make our way to Cambridge, arriving at 11 am, about 44 hours after leaving Connecticut.

Afterglow

We're told that the rehearsal is in two hours. I take a lovely shower, wash my hair, and get some new clothes out. I even grab a 20 minute catnap. Really refreshed at this point. We rehearse, change into black tie outfits, go to a fancypants dinner at Kings College, sing, drink, eat, etc. At about 11 pm not even running on fumes, we start to head back to the hotel, I run into the fellow who had been my seatmate on the first flight to nowhere -- a lovely portly older gentleman who had also been crammed into one of these small seats and kept his good humor the whole time -- and say with some glee "We get to sleep in a real bed now!" He turns and says the funniest thing I'd heard in some time: "Oh no, I don't think so. I think I'm just going to go find a lobby somewhere and camp out. Maybe even find a chair. I'm not sure I'm ready for a bed."

As the Russian Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky told us after our concert a few days later: "Next time, fly Aeroflot, like me. That pilot -- he take off in anything."

We may have done some singing and stuff, but at this point I don't remember too much. And you all wonder why I don't take many vacations. I don't think I can survive many more of these.