I’ve just realised I haven’t actually checked whether or not I’ve written about Seattle before. If not, here’s another one for you.
I’m bored and there is another hour ’til Silent Witness and I’m occupying myself so I don’t start WhatsApping people I shouldn’t be, so I thought I’d amuse myself by going through my journal and seeing if there are any trips I haven’t blogged about. As luck would have it, there are several. Bet you’re all thrilled.
Anyway, Seattle. Home of Greys Anatomy, 50 Shades of Grey and the Worlds First Starbucks. I’ve actually only been once, for ages it was fairly high up on my bids and I kept being rostered them and then being taken off them, either because I was unwell or because my trip before it changed or one of the other countless reasons the rostering Gods pull you off a trip.
At The Worlds Favourite Airline, Seattle is either a 3 or 4 day trip going on the 777 (no bunks) or the 747. I thought we had taken a 747 out and the 777 home but just looking back through my pictures we came home on a 747 as well.
I was quite excited to go to Seattle for some reason, I can’t really remember why. It’s a bloody long way to Seattle, I think it was about 10 hours on the way out but it felt like a lifetime. I was working as the Traveller (economy) cabin galley lead which, if you’ve got a decent crew, is quite a nice position on the 747. We were delayed an hour on the ground at Heathrow before boarding because the aircraft was too hot for passengers, so we sat about with all the doors open, did the Sudoku in The Times, read The Daily Mail and played with Snapchat filters for an hour and then eventually someone made the decision to start boarding. I’d like to say it was more technical or exciting than this but this is literally as good as it gets most of the time.
The outbound leg was pretty incident free until we got to the second service. On the 747 the traveller service is known as a ‘four corners service’ – the galley is by Doors 4 in the middle of the Traveller cabin, four trolleys go out, one to each ‘corner’ and work to meet. Anyway, I was faffing about in the galley doing more teas and coffees and crashing about with trolleys when suddenly I hear a what sounded like every call bell in the cabin go off.
I stuck my head round the curtain assuming that one of the girls needed something from the galley only to be met with the sight of a customer in the aisle, mid seizure. Bloody marvellous. Exactly what you want mid-service when you’ve been awake 15 hours already.
To cut a long and slightly dull story short, there isn’t an awful lot you can do for someone having a seizure apart from protect their head as best you can and wait for them to come round. This isn’t always made any easier by having 243 pairs of eyes on you watching your every move whilst simuteaneously asking you for another coffee/paracetamol/duty-free, a landing card and the special meal the ordered but they didn’t receive 8 hours ago because they were asleep. Luckily the gentleman was travelling with his wife who was a nurse and was used to dealing with her husband’s health issues so could let us know exactly what was going on. We spoke to the flight crew and to medlink and as we were only around 90 minutes from landing the decision was made to carry on to Seattle, rather than divert. All good fun.
I don’t really remember a huge amount about arriving in Seattle. I’m pretty sure it was raining. I think we got to the hotel about 7pm but it could well have been slightly earlier. Either way I was so tired I could barely speak and as we were there less than 24 hours I ordered room service and went straight to bed.
According to my journal I slept the entire way through the night, which with the 8 hour West Coast time difference is pretty good going. In the morning a few of us went down to the water front to list for standby seat on the seaplane tour of the Sound and then walked up into town.
We did the standard touristy bits, the worlds first Starbucks (bought a v overpriced mug), the chewing gum wall (google it, it’s disgusting) and Pike Place Market where we had a pretty expensive but delicious brunch at Lowell’s, overlooking the Sound. The corned beef hash was pretty decent. After a quick wander round CVS to pick up essentials (EOS shave cream and Crest whitening strips) it was back to the hotel for a snooze before pick up.
Trips like this are the downside of flying and what I keep having to remind myself of whenever I want to go back, which is pretty regularly. As exciting as it is being in a new city, you are literally so exhausted you can barely stand up half the time and as good as you get at fighting the tiredness and carrying on, sometimes you just want to go to bed especially when you’re in a city for less than 24 hours and have a 9 hour night flight home.
The flight home was pretty uneventful thankfully, with amazing views on the climb out making the long slog home slightly easier.
I’d like to be able to give a bit more of an opinion on Seattle but I really wasn’t there for long enough, from what I saw of it though it was alright. It rained. It was quite grey and industrial. The hotel was alright, pretty average gym, beds were quite comfy, room service was expensive. Pike Place market is worth a look apart from that though my experience is pretty limited.
Life From Above 