by Silva Payne

Created on: October 08, 2008   Last Updated: February 14, 2010

Texas in October 2008

I have written this as if my penpals were reading it, and for Helium readers, Ray is my husband and he currently has a bed in Coffield prison TX. This is my travel diary from one of my twice-yearly trips to Texas.

September 29th feels a long way gone now. I didn't try to sleep before the taxi came at midnight, and I got maybe 20 minutes sleep on the 3 hour bus journey to Heathrow. Being in London at 3am is a strange thing; you are never alone there but it's strange to see it so quiet. For those who think a city never sleeps, well, London snoozes. I had to get the Heathrow Connect train from the central bus station to Terminal 4 (a free service) and I assumed that it would run all night as flights come in and out all the time. I was wrong: I don't know when the last train is, but the first one in the morning isn't until 5am so getting the earlier bus into London was a waste of time because I still had to spend 2 hours sitting on assorted uncomfortable seats waiting for doors to open.

My fears over crossing Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam were not unfounded, especially as we were 10 minutes late taking off from London. The KLM staff at check-in gave me a Terminal map so I knew roughly which direction to go, but from experience I still knew it would be tight. Now I don't run, not by any stretch of the imagination and certainly not after being up all night and carrying a heavy bag on my shoulder, but with the help of the moving walkways I got from gate D3 to gate F7 just in time. More bag inspections, more metal detectors and pat searches later and I was finally heading to Dallas Fort Worth airport. My nerves had gone by this point, as I knew they would; I was only really worried about making the connection between flights, I'm an old hand at everything else!

The last time I flew with KLM was actually the first time I few ever in 2004 to Toronto. As that was my first experience, it was hard to say if I was impressed or happy with the service or not, but this time I can say that KLM have pretty much got things worked out, except the seats, which are a little small and the arms in between seats don't go all the way back so you still have it sticking into your shoulder or arm even when it's up. But the food is reasonable, there are plenty of free drinks (note to American Airlines: FREE drinks guys) and you even get ice cream. The entertainment system is the best I've seen too: instead of showing films on a loop, KLM have just a list to choose

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