Turn Left

I did get to turn left when I got on the plane.

When I contacted the airline to confirm the upgrade on the Sunday evening, they said they'd sort it out, but they managed to delete it altogether! So I phoned them again and I got a window seat (2F) next to a nice young American lady. The seat did indeed go flat, but I didn't have it like that much. The dinner was served not long after take-off, starting with warm roasted nuts and another drink, then bread rolls/garlic bread with a mixed salad with vinaigrette. Next came the appetizer, which was morel mushroom soup accommpanied by seafood-filled pastry and lamb kebab with chutney. For the main course, I chose the tenderloin of beef with marsala sauce, carrots, sugarsnap peas and potato au gratin (other choices were roasted Peruvian chicken; Seafood Stew; and Pasta Bowl). The cheese course was next, but it tasted odd so I didn't eat very much of the cheese - but they had some Cheddars biscuits. The dessert course was a very nice vanilla ice cream, with chocolate sauce. After that, coffee was served. I'm pleased I just sampled the free buffet at lounge, because I was considering having a proper dinner at one of the restaurants instead, but I'd never had managed everything on the plane if I had have done that. A couple of hours after dinner there was a wonderful baking smell wafting through the cabin, which turned out to be freshly baked cookies - they were very nice too.

I watched the 007 film (Tomorrow Never Dies) and played a couple of the games. As we chased the sun westwards, we had a magnificent sunset from deep red through yellow to light blue to dark blue.

We left the gate on time and then taxied around for half an hour but we arrived early, touching down just about 9.20pm local time. After a short taxi and a short walk, I was at immigration and despite having to do the procedure twice because the fingerprint scanner was dirty, that was very quick. My bag was one of the first out, with its bright orange "Priority" sticker. By 9.45pm I was through all the formalities and headed to the AirTrain station, and I was in my hotel room at 10.30pm on the dot, barely an hour after touching down.

It's warm here - it was reportedly over 90F (32C) earlier this evening, but had cooled down to 84F (29C) by the time I arrived.

Heathrow

Travel to the airport was very smooth, although the journey down to Kings Cross took twice as long as usual due to engineering works, although it was good that I didn't have to change train at all. The underground was quick and fortunately, the H&C underground platform comes out next to the Heathrow Express platforms! I bypassed the check-in queues to get my boarding pass and check bag in, and now I'm sitting in the lounge in Terminal 4 - right at the opposite end of the terminal to the gate the plane's going to leave from! There's a cold buffet here, with meats and cheeses, crisps, and coffee and cake. All free - except for the 20,000 airmiles that the upgrade cost me!

Itinerary

Date	Journey	Route	Flight	Times
30/8	LHR-EWR	London Heathrow - Newark	CO19	18.30 BST - 21.40 ET
2/9	EWR-MSP	Newark - Minneapolis St Paul	CO2993	11.35 ET - 13.32 CT
5/9	MSP-DEN	Minneapolis St Paul - Denver	CO6883	12.30 CT - 13.52 MT
8/9	DEN-SAN	Denver - San Diego	CO6726	11.43 MT - 13.01 PT
14/9	SAN-IAH	San Diego-Houston	CO131	06.40 PT - 11.50 CT
	IAH-ATL	Houston-Atlanta	CO1757	12.55 CT - 15.57 ET
16/9	ATL-EWR	Atlanta-Newark	CO2843	12.05 ET - 14.18 ET
18/9	EWR-LHR	Newark-London Heathrow	CO28	18.40 ET - 06.45 BST

Dates	City	Hotel
30/8-31/8	New Jersey	Hampton Inn, Newark Airport
31/8-2/9	New York	Holiday Inn Express, Kennedy Airport
2/9-5/9	Minneapolis	Marriott City Centre
5/9-8/9	Denver	Courtyard Marriott Downtown
8/9-14/9	San Diego	Holiday Inn Express, 1st Avenue
14/9-16/9	Atlanta	Holiday Inn Downtown Centennial Park
16/9-18/9	New York	Holiday Inn Express, Kennedy Airport

Date	Game
31/8	Oakland A's @ New York Yankees
1/9
2/9	Detroit Tigers @ Minnesota Twins
3/9	Texas Rangers @ Minnesota Twins
4/9
6/9	Cincinnati Reds @ Colorado Rockies
7/9
9/9	San Francisco Giants @ San Diego Padres
10/9
11/9
12/9
14/9	Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves
15/9
16/9	Pittsburgh Pirates @ New York Mets
17/9	Atlanta Braves @ New York Mets