1126 On plane.
1215 Was feeling sleep during takeoff. Not so much now. Guy in front of me has reclined his seat so I pretty much have to recline mine, even though I'd rather not.
1219 The guy sat behind me got asked to show his boarding pass before we took off. He just got asked for his passport. WTF? Does he look stereotypically dodgy or something?
1429 Food surprisingly edible, chicken and rice. Had non-diet coke to further rack up the calories. Watched "We're The Millers", better than I expected if a bit tedious right at end. There are only about 8 films available, it's not as good as BA but I guess it is cheaper. Touch wood not had any significant problems with tooth or teeth or whatever so far. 9h 9m flying time left.
This is an A330-200. Flight in from Bogota was on an A340, I am not sure I've been on one of them before, though perhaps I was more struck by a certain old-fashioned quality (CRT TV on electronic retractable mount) of that particular one rather than anything else distinctive. (It had some flat panels as well, no seat back screens but a lot of cheaper shortish flights don't anyway.)
1643 Just watched "Captain Phillips", which was surprisingly powerful. We are 7h 10m 6148km from Madrid, map suggests we are a fair distance off the Brazilian coast east of Recife.
I'm going to switch to Madrid time I think.
2048 No I'm not, I can't be sure what Madrid time is and it will be confusing all round if I guess. I've switched to London time (with a view to it maybe helping me try to adopt a London-based sleep schedule, though in reality who knows how well I'll sleep).
2221 Just watched "Gravity". I must be going nuts cos I found myself flinching at all the near misses when she was trying to grab on to stuff. It was OK overall, though from the description on the in-flight entertainment I expected it to consistent entirely of a conversation between two people doomed to spend what they had left of their lives drifting helplessly in space, not an action film at all.
We just got given a cheese mini baguette, astoundingly with no mayonnaise, and a drink; I had an orange juice.
We are due to land at about 4am London time so if I am going to sleep I should probably do it now. On the other hand I don't exactly feel tired and I can't sleep on demand.
0019 Just watched "The Counselor". Bit overly stylish but meh, OK.
0257 Sufficiently desperate to watch "Baggage Claim.". Tolerable, if not something I would ever watch if I wasn't on a plane or a date. Not exactly tired - I guess it's only 11pm body clock time, though was bit short on sleep last night - it's OK. Not exactly looking forward to (I strongly suspect) another security scan in Madrid and waiting around for the London flight and then the flight and then getting into London from Gatwick but it's OK.
If I'm lucky I might be 'settled' in London by say 11am so that's only 8 hours to go. Obviously not intending to do any job search shit today (or tomorrow, when I'm off up to Skegness in the afternoon). That starts Friday. (Fortunately JR helped tart my CV up when I was halfheartedly looking back in June-ish so it just needs a minor change to mention this bout of travel and it's ready to go; the horrific task of updating it in any significant way doesn't need to be done.)
We got a quite nice hot ham and cheese roll and a sort of bun for breakfast, and I had an orange juice. Not hungry and it will be OK but it annoys me I won't be able to get any affordable food (and I'd rather not withdraw euros in Madrid if I can help it) for eight hours but I just remembered I have those peanuts in my bag, which is a bonus, also extra strong mints, plus I intend to have lunch almost as soon as I'm settled in London. 11am is at least vaguely appropriate for that.
Yawning, no point sleeping now.
Oddly the inflight entertainment menu specifies the following languages available for films: Fra Ita Spa Eng Rus Por Deu. How does that work? If it's using English names for the languages, why do we have Deu (for Deutsch/Deutscheland, I assume)? If it's using each language's own name, why do we have Spa (Spain/Spanish)? It doesn't *matter* but it seems odd when you have leisure to contemplate such minutiae.
0440 At gate in Madrid airport. Some observations:
- someone started applause after we landed, just as I was recalling that happening when Bogota-BA flight landed and thinking it didn't happen in Europe. I didn't join in. :-)
- we taxied for *ages* after landing (at 15-20 mph according to screens, ie not that slowly). Barajas must be fucking enormous.
- thanks to code share flights showing on multiple lines, one for each code - one flight to Paris occupies *nine* lines - the double monitor showing flights and gates doesn't show my flight. They announced the gate on the plane and they checked my boarding pass at the security checkpoint so pretty sure am in right place but still.
- security was courteous but a hassle. I got pulled up for having a bottle of water, which I was allowed to drink after going to the 'insecure' side of the scanner and metal detector to drink, leaving my bag etc on the secure side. I wasn't allowed to stand there and chug it (it took me about five seconds) where I was. Prior to that I didn't help matters by forgetting to take my belt off, so I got patted down and the belt put through the scanner. It was OK and as I say courteous and at least I wasn't in a rush but FFS. I JUST FLEW IN, WHY DO I HAVE TO BE RESCREENED?
Will send this on free 15 mins airport wifi.
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