Travelling
Aug. 10th, 2018 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953I flew into San Francisco yesterday, on my way to Worldcon 76 in San Jose next week.
A fairly uneventful flight - I got a lot of reading done - was followed by a two-hour queue to get through US customs. Apparently two other flights had got in just before us and the queue went out of the customs hall down the corridor when I joined it.
Still, there were bits of amusement whilst waiting. I watched a small woman trying to change chairs in her booth before opening it up and the chair she was trying to move was as big as her and had no castors. Then somebody trying to marshal the queue sent a group of people down to the other end of the hall (where US residents had been processed, but they'd all gone through).."Send them to the middle," he shouted. Then, "Not that middle, the other middle!" The spirit of the Chuckle Brothers lives on.
So, having landed just before four, local time, it was nearly six when I got into a taxi, and traffic in San Francisco was bad. I got to bed after unpacking and having a both. The Villa Florence is a pleasant hotel, just off Union Square, but I couldn't work out how to stop the air-conditioning from blowing cold air right across my bed. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing. I think I've managed to adjust it now. There's a remote control with instructions that you point it at the unit to change the settings. I was pointing it at the vent, but I finally discovered this morning that the actual control section is to the left of the vent, hidden behind a wooden lattice.
I was up before six this morning and after going through my e-mail and reading the paper, I went out for breakfast. I remembered that the last time I was in San Francisco, almost exactly ten years ago, there was a diner next to my hotel that did good breakfasts. The Villa Florence is in the same block, and I quickly found where the diner was. There's still a diner there, but it has changed considerably since I was last there. Still, I went in for breakfast and it was your typical US breakfast - I ordered bacon and eggs with hash browns and toast. I finished this off very quickly. I hadn't eaten since before the plane landed yesterday afternoon. Someone came and took my plate away and I was hoping for some more coffee when a waitress turned up with a plate of bacon and eggs with hash browns and toast. I resisted the temptation to eat two breakfasts.
A fairly uneventful flight - I got a lot of reading done - was followed by a two-hour queue to get through US customs. Apparently two other flights had got in just before us and the queue went out of the customs hall down the corridor when I joined it.
Still, there were bits of amusement whilst waiting. I watched a small woman trying to change chairs in her booth before opening it up and the chair she was trying to move was as big as her and had no castors. Then somebody trying to marshal the queue sent a group of people down to the other end of the hall (where US residents had been processed, but they'd all gone through).."Send them to the middle," he shouted. Then, "Not that middle, the other middle!" The spirit of the Chuckle Brothers lives on.
So, having landed just before four, local time, it was nearly six when I got into a taxi, and traffic in San Francisco was bad. I got to bed after unpacking and having a both. The Villa Florence is a pleasant hotel, just off Union Square, but I couldn't work out how to stop the air-conditioning from blowing cold air right across my bed. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing. I think I've managed to adjust it now. There's a remote control with instructions that you point it at the unit to change the settings. I was pointing it at the vent, but I finally discovered this morning that the actual control section is to the left of the vent, hidden behind a wooden lattice.
I was up before six this morning and after going through my e-mail and reading the paper, I went out for breakfast. I remembered that the last time I was in San Francisco, almost exactly ten years ago, there was a diner next to my hotel that did good breakfasts. The Villa Florence is in the same block, and I quickly found where the diner was. There's still a diner there, but it has changed considerably since I was last there. Still, I went in for breakfast and it was your typical US breakfast - I ordered bacon and eggs with hash browns and toast. I finished this off very quickly. I hadn't eaten since before the plane landed yesterday afternoon. Someone came and took my plate away and I was hoping for some more coffee when a waitress turned up with a plate of bacon and eggs with hash browns and toast. I resisted the temptation to eat two breakfasts.
