AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD UP IN THE AIR

Travelling on business is one of the great privileges of the world because you get to see new places and meet interesting new people.  But my recent five cities in five days trip around the US to visit Montessori training centers reminded me that it’s not always easy going.  While two people likened my tour to being like George Clooney from the film Up in the Air, I sometimes felt more like Nicholas Cage in Con Air.

It’s fair to say that I’m not really a designer-led person so booking a boutique hotel in St Paul was unlikely to be a good start.  My first encounter with a boutique was when I was thirteen and had been dared to stand by the lingerie counter in Chelsea Girl*.  The withering looks and snide comments of the assistants made Dorothy Parker and the Heathers look benevolent, and left mental scars that are with me to this day.

The words hotel and boutique are not commensurate because the former suggests welcome, low stress and comfort.  The latter represents isolation because you feel obliged to use the digital key rather than check in at reception, bewilderment at the lack of a simple book showing available services, and an uneasy feeling that you’ve been overcharged.  Boutique hotels also tend to be an obstacle course of dayglo colours, bad art, and quirky furniture designed to bruise shins, bang knees and graze elbows.       

These are hotels designed by pranksters who never put anything in the obvious place.  So, it was little surprise to spend a full ten minutes looking for a way to turn off the light in the lobby of the room.  I never considered it would be hidden in plain sight as, misleadingly, a switch with the words ‘Entry’ above it. 

Being ‘boutique’ also means using the word environmentalism as a convenient way to reduce service.  Liquid soap dispensers are placed high on the wall to suit those who shower while discouraging and punishing those who revel in a good bath.  Standing and shivering in my early morning dripping, naked glory to take a handful of soap is a reminder that the invention of the bar of soap (as early as 2800BC) is one of the things that separates us from Cro-Magnon Man.

With signs about turning lights off (if you can find the switch), saving water and reusing bath towels, this boutique hotel was clearly setting itself up to be on the UN Champions of the Earth award list.  But the lack of follow through became evident when, after another ten-minute hunt, I found the tea and coffee stashed in a wholly unnecessary ‘designer’ cardboard tube shaped like a Toblerone.        

As it happens lights are a constant cause of hotel rage with almost every room having something that flashes or an eerie glow coming from an undefined source.  The digital clock in the hotel outdid itself because when I turned it so the glare faced away from the bed I found that there was also a display on the side.  Are people really so idle that they can’t be expected to adjust their neck to look at the front of a clock just two feet away?         

Hotel bathrooms are an increasing hazard because I rarely bother to wear my glasses during my ablutions, and I know I am not alone in finding that can lead to moments worthy of Mr Bean.  An ex-colleague once said that a combination of myopia and a bad hangover led them to try and brush their teeth with athlete’s foot ointment.  My own episode Mr Magoo in Milwaukee came when, after squinting at four similar bottles with indistinct writing, I finally managed to try and shampoo my hair with mouthwash.

And don’t get me started on the danger of hotel showers. No indicator of the direction for hot or cold is common and results in rapid hypothermia or boiled bits to kick the day off. Or the uncertainty of whether there will be a dribble of water too limp to rinse properly or a torrent mighty enough to knock you over.  

And then there is the flying. Everybody who has remained among my band of Facebook friends has become familiar with my concern about the state of rail travel.  Actually, they have become familiar with the fact that I don’t really like people who are anything but still and quiet when they are in an enclosed, shared space.  Some would say that the previous sentence could end after ‘I don’t really like people…’  The point here is that planes can be worse.

Research has demonstrated conclusively how planes should be boarded to deliver maximum efficiency.  So, it is a total mystery why airlines continue to follow systems that are doomed to fall foul of people who are subconsciously trying to delay getting onto a cramped metal box that could fall out of the sky.  Thousands of years of evolution have conditioned us to realise that being higher up than six feet is dangerous and that, as Buzz Lightyear put it, what we see as flying can be characterised as ‘falling with style’.

The other thing is that the whole game of what you can take on a plane has got totally out of hand.  I would happily allow explosive material and sharp things if only to use them on the guy who sat next to me from Milwaukee to Detroit and ate a curry that was aromatic enough to qualify as a weapon of mass destruction.  Allowing emotional support animals is also a step too far because flying is meant to be stressful so that we are reminded not to try it at home.

Uber has become a lifeline to getting anywhere in an unfamiliar town but sometimes the chattiness of the driver can take you down a path that is less than perfect.  One ride in Washington DC began with me asking the driver how he had got into the Uber line of work.  It was disturbing to hear him say that he had been a flight attendant but had to give up because of the effect of pressurised cabins on his badly damaged retina.

You also find that some airports are adapting in different ways to the need of passengers for pick up points.  Most still have a lawless scrum where phone wielding, tired and often emotional clients seek out their drivers through a mixture of shouting, barging and rushing out into the traffic.  Full marks to Portland which has streamlined to one line of cares and one queue of passengers – it worked best of all.

There were many good things from the week.  My new Hartmann luggage enabled me to manage five days of clothes, including two suits, three pairs of shoes, a full change of shirts every day and casual clothes without checking luggage.  I didn’t lose anything, each flight landed close to published time and the TSA pre-check service allowed painless security checks every time.  And I met really talented, intelligent and thoughtful people.  Probably just as well because I had to do it all again two weeks’ later…..      

*Founded in 1965, Chelsea Girl was the UK’s first fashion boutique chain.  It became River Island in 1988.

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