Plane Sailing

So after yesterdays americanah blip, today I’ve made the hop across the pond to The Land of the Free. A weekend in Minesotta and then a week down Kentucky. New frontiers and new places await me.

Todays blip is the first sighting of land – Greenland, which I guess is officially Europe- I think!?. The dawn chased us and the light was golden on the fresh snow. It looked beautifully bleak down there.
Siimilarly flying over Newfoundland, a new dusting of snow exposed the contours, the occasional roads and many lakes and I wondered what life might be like down there. A raw and honest conection to the land and the seasons I suspect, a harsh beauty, a quiet isolation.

Like the course of true love, the course of international travel rarely runs smooth. Chicago lived up to it’s name of the Windy city and we pulled out of landing with a few hundred feet to go, went to Millwake for gas, and back for a sideways landing at Chicago. A few brief flakes of snow as we touched down brought to mind the film, Planes, Trains and Autombiles. Thankfully the connecting flight was deleayed also, but then it took over an 1 hour to be profiled and processed by immigration, I arrived at security in the adjacent terminal with 12mins to go – I’d been bumped off the flight……... If Mad Bum can keep his head so can I, I spotted an empty first class check in desk, put my best English accent on “you know I really like to go to Minesotta tonight” and was treated like royalty and ushered through as the gate closed behind me – phew. – Like my new sporting hero Maddisoin Bumgarner, after a long, tiring journey I was good for the save.