Worldcon 2024
Started: 2024-08-17 18:06:45
Submitted: 2024-08-17 11:14:01
Visibility: World-readable
Flying across the Atlantic to visit Glasgow for Worldcon
For 2024 the World Science Fiction Society decided to hold Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland in the middle of August. This was an inconvenient time for us because my kids are enrolled in public school in Santa Cruz and the local school district has decided to organize its academic calendar for early semesters, so the school year is evenly split around the end-of-year holidays. The obvious advantage is that the high school semester ends before Christmas. (I understand the appeal; I remember going back to school after several weeks off for Christmas and having two weird weeks at the end of the semester and finals.) But this is awkward because Worldcon typically ends up mid-to-late August so we can't attend as a family; in fact, Worldcon started on the first day of school. Instead we ended up with an arrangement where I'd attend Worldcon this year (in Glasgow) and Kiesa can attend Worldcon next year (in Seattle).
To maximize my vacation time I decided that I could leave on Wednesday afternoon, the 7th of August, and work from the plane. I wanted to land in Scotland without setting foot in England first, and the easiest way to do that turned out to be to fly from SFO to IAD and then to Edinburgh.
Kiesa ended up with enough time to take me to SFO on Wednesday morning, saving me the expense of parking at the airport (with long-term parking at something like $20/day for ten days), or getting a car service to take me ($160/one way, which made parking seem affordable), or trying to take transit (not especially expensive, but it'd take three or four hours and involve three transit agencies who aren't interested in coordinating schedules), or parking at BART (which is actually relatively inexpensive and moderately easy, because BART suddenly has far more parking than they need, though I wasn't keen on the idea of having to drive home after a trans-Atlantic plane flight).
My first flight, from SFO to IAD, was operated on a 787-8. Everything seemed to be going well until, just before we were scheduled to push back from the gate, the captain advised us on the PA that there was a delay fueling the aircraft and that our departure would be delayed. Only then did I look out my window and notice the fuel cart hooked up to the wing. At length the fuel cart finished and we pushed back and departed.
The next minor setback was that the in-flight Internet wasn't working on the plane. I wrote some code and reviewed some documentation and notes instead while flying coast-to-coast over an entire continent.
As we approached IAD I tried to do the math on my layover to check how much time I would have for my connecting flight to Edinburgh. My original schedule had an hour and fifteen minutes between flights, which I figured would be enough to grab a quick supper (late in the local time zone, but right on time in the time zone I started in); but the delay fueling the plane was cutting into that. Then the captain announced that we would be delayed due to weather around the airport related to the remnants of a hurricane. We took a somewhat-meandering approach and pulled up to the gate, then waited a few minutes for the ground crew. At one point we heard that there was a power outage in the terminal, and then the ramp was closed due to lightning in the area.
I stopped worrying about my connecting flight when I realized that every inbound flight would be delayed. This turned out to be correct; by the time the ground crew were released from sheltering from the storm and we departed the plane and I made my way down the concourse crowded by people all waiting for their delayed flights (and anxious about their disrupted travel) I found my gate, where my flight was also delayed and wouldn't even begin boarding for another half-hour.
At the gate one of the agents advised American passport holders to make sure that their passports were signed, which seemed like an announcement based on hard lessons. (I was quite confident that I had already signed mine — in fact, I had already flown to the UK once with this very passport — but I double-checked and confirmed that I had.
We boarded the plane (a 757-200, flying the long-and-thin route to Edinburgh) and, when it seemed like everyone was on board, there were still a bunch of empty seats in the back third of the plane, including the middle seat next to my window seat. It soon emerged that there were 27 connecting passengers on a flight from Tampa (who turned out to be in large part a tour group), and the captain decided to wait for them, because there were no other flights to Edinburgh. Finally one guy boarded, who turned out to be the vanguard of the Tampa flight; and then the remaining 26 people filled the remaining seats on the plane, including the no-longer-empty seat next to me. We pushed back and departed for our long flight across the Atlantic.
When the in-flight dinner service rolled out, I realized that I had forgotten to request a special meal. It used to be that requesting a vegetarian meal was the only way to eat, but more recently I've observed that my special vegan meal was far less desirable than the actually-vegetarian normal meal. This dinner service gave me the (unintentional) chance to test this; and it turned out that one of the two main options was a vegetarian pasta that was perfectly serviceable.
After dinner I reclined my seat, pulled out my pillow and mask and earplugs, wrapped myself in the thin blanket, and tried to get a few hours sleep before landing in Edinburgh.
