The Pre-Flight Shenanigans

I’m not a fan of flying. I have claustrophobia which gets steadily worse the longer I’m trapped in a small metal tube with no means of escape. Short flights of a few hours aren’t a big deal, but things start going south about three hours in. By five hours I’m white-knuckled and doing everything in my power to stop myself from screaming and making a run for the emergency exit at 9,144 meters.

The flight from Seattle to Amsterdam is ten hours.

Fortunately, there’s a magical substance that makes everyone around me significantly more attractive and also takes care of my claustrophobia and general irritability:

Alcohol.

Which you can buy on planes, but it does get spendy.

I bought a couple bottles of mouthwash and dumped the contents down the drain. I rinsed them out a few times with hot water, then filled them 9/10s full of Jack Daniels and added a single drop of green food coloring. Put the caps back on, gave the bottle a quick shake, and it’s mouthwash you don’t want to spit out.

I made it through security without a cavity search, found my gate, and went up to the desk. Delta had been pimping their cheap upgrade options via email and everywhere through the terminal, and the idea of additional legroom for less than $10 was appealing. I asked the clerk what upgrades were available.

She typed rapidly, frowning. “It looks like…the only ones are available would be if you repurchased a ticket. Which would be…$5,168.00.”

I gave her my best you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me look. She did not look apologetic. I stalked away to find a vending machine and get a Coke. It turned out to not matter, since I was one of the three people on the plane who had an empty seat next to them. Score!

While we headed to cruising altitude I took a few swigs from my Coke. I then dug my backpack from beneath the seat in front of me and extracting the 0.946-liter ziplock bag that contained my toiletries. One of the mouthwash bottles had been leaking and everything inside now smelled like minty Jack Daniels.

The woman across the aisle watched me carefully, trying to make up her mind whether to ask me exactly why I was pouring mouthwash into my Coke. She evidently thought better of it and studiously ignored me for the rest of the flight. I took a sip. Evidently I hadn’t rinsed the bottles quite as well as I’d thought. Still, spearminty Jack & Coke isn’t as bad as you might think.

Having never flown over an ocean before, I was very excited for crossing the Atlantic. It was dark the entire time.

Nine hours later we arrived in Amsterdam in rainstorm that reduced visibility to fuck all. I wandered through the airport until I found my connecting flight to Scotland and was overjoyed to discover that I had to go through security again. Fortunately, it was only about fifty minutes of standing in line before I set off the metal detector and received a patdown from a chipper Amsterdonian, whose hands lingered on my ass a few seconds longer than I’d consider strictly professional.

The new plane was much smaller. There was something playing over the intercom that sounded like Sean Connery mangling the German language. A few moments later it switched to English and holy fuck our pilot sounds exactly like Sean Connery. I have never been more attentive to in-flight announcements, and our pilot was a talker. Every word was drenched in warm butter, caressing my earholes and my soul.

Edinburgh

Scotland customs were a breeze and in short order I found myself outside with a handful of twenty-pound notes in my pocket. Before I’d left, I’d carefully noted down the bus I needed to catch and the name and street address of the hotel in my cell phone. I pulled out my phone and access my notes.

It wasn’t there.

Shit.

Nor could I remember any of the pertinent details. The only thing I could remember about the trip was that I needed to drink some Carlsberg beer which probably would have helped but would not have actually resolved the situation.

I carefully went through every note on my phone three times while using a variety of increasingly colorful profanity. Nothing. I then went through my text message history, eventually finding the name of the hotel: the Apex Waterloo. Without too much trouble I figured out which bus I needed to take, only to find they only take exact fare. Back inside the airport to find a small shop and bought a newspaper. The shopkeeper said “Cheers.” I was instantly happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

The bus was a double-decker, allowing me to check another item off my bucket list.

I made my way to the hotel without much of a problem, dropped my stuff off, and headed off to find a place to eat.

The Albanach

Haggis, as you’re probably aware, is Scotland’s national dish, and is on every menu in every restaurant there; traditionally served as haggis, neeps, and tatties (haggis, turnips, and potatoes). Haggis is basically all of the disgusting parts of a sheep (lungs, liver, scrotum, etc) ground up into a paste, mixed with a few other things, stuffed inside a sheep stomach, and then boiled for a few hours. Haggis is something that was up at #3 of the List of Things I Will Never Fucking Eat (#1 being lutefisk and #2 being balut).

Still. When in Rome.

After a few minutes of walking I arrived at a likely-enough place called The Albanach and ordered a beer and their haggis dish, which came with mashed potatoes and gravy. As I waited, I pondered my escape plan. There was no way to leave with dignity after violently throwing up everywhere in front of the four Scottish women sitting across from me, but at least I could drop a twenty-pound note on the table and leave immediately.

The haggis arrived.

I hacked off a piece and stared at it. It stared back at me. You are about to eat sheep lungs, my subconscious said to me. Not meat. Not delicious, tender muscle. Lungs. A sheep used to breathe through this and you are going to eat it.

My subconscious hates me sometimes.

I put it in my mouth and chewed. It was delicious. I took another bite, dousing it in the onion gravy first. It was even more delicious.

So much for the list. Next up, duck embryo!