Boy, oh boy, what a long day that was! We got up at 6 (both quite perky, as sleeping before a long trip isn’t our thing), finished the remaining packing in a minute AND I managed to answer a few work emails regarding the Armitage during our commute to Stansted!
Everything went surprisingly smoothly, which was somewhat odd as I was waiting to be profiled yet again: a usual thing that happened before quite a few times: security grabbed me out of the queue and the rest was mildly unpleasant—nothing you can do about it except acquiescing, I guess. We decided to travel with an Icelandic airline this time—mostly because the commute through Keflavik looked more reliable in terms of timing—and we were not disappointed: the first flight was very short (under three hours), and we spent another hour and a half in Keflavik, enjoying lovely grim weather (yeah, I know! Sorry, my friends who crave the warmth!) and spectacular mossy/volcano landscapes while landing. But man, is Iceland expensive!.. I still remember our 2017 trip via Bergen and the priciest coffee and biccie in my life (about £23 altogether), but it looked like the Keflavik prices could beat that record easily! We didn’t buy anything at the end, as we weren’t particularly hungry, but it was something that stuck in my mind.
One tiny criticism, however: whilst we had priority boarding, we thought that our small rucksacks would easily go to the luggage compartment above, but nay: on both flights flight attendants told us to remove them and place them under the seats in front of us, which was quite uncomfortable during the second part of our journey, as the not-so-generous legroom shrank even more. Since we both don’t fly that much overall, it feels like we missed the moment when that became the norm. But other than that, everything else was fine.
When flying over Boston, I looked in awe at the harbour with tiny white boats: the scenery was absolutely gorgeous in the pre-golden hour. I was reading Blackwood’s Human Chord (my recent British library “Tales of the Weird” offer) on the second flight, and knowing that Blackwood was a member of the Golden Dawn order (and so were Machen and Yeats) paired with looking at the landscapes harmoniously.
Then there was South Station in Boston, and our train to Providence, and the Holy City in its full dusky glory, and the very first clam chowder (it’s a tradition, after all!), and lobster rolls, and thinking about the upcoming event with mixed feelings of joy and worry, anticipating to meet all the lovely people, and then, finally, a long, long sleep full of weird dreams. I didn’t know I missed it so much.
No comments :
Post a Comment