The pros and cons of flying to the US just now

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I don't normally make these sort of posts, but I thought it might be worthwhile to sound out you friendly and informed folks on our little quandary.

Pamela and I are due to fly from Gatwick to Newark this coming Friday, returning from Dulles to Heathrow a fortnight later. It's our first real holiday in over 2 years (and the first time Pam's been back to the US since '99), and practically every day of our trip was packed with places we had to go and people we had to meet. We made a list of pros and cons last night (much of which was personal stuff like the +ve and -ve feedback we were getting from certain Stateside friends, and the likelihood of getting a full car-hire refund at such a late date - aside from the security aspect), and, yep, the lists were dead even. Even special weighting couldn't sort it out.

Two things have happened today to nudge us towards cancellation - learning that, yes, the credit card *will* be reimbursed to the full value of all we'd previously shelled out for, and, no, Pam's sister doesn't feel up to taking an internal flight from Florida to Virginia with 6-month-old baby in tow for our planned meet-up in the second half of week two.

My first inklings that we should stay put came with the Bush/Powell 'war' speeches; I know there are plenty of avenues for dissent/decent analysis in the American media, but I felt hugely uncomfortable at the idea of being in the United States at a time when military action was being taken by that nation. I'm not sure why, but I feel a bit cosier with the idea of picking up The Guardian each day, or watching Ch4 news, when something like that is going on. More than that, it's just BEING AT HOME. Of course, we'd be surrounded by good friends, none of whom would be remotely gung-ho about US strikes, but still...

There's also the sense that this trip is no longer going to be anything like FUN. The New York bit especially.

So, if we DON'T GO, Pam gets to redistribute her 11 days of holiday throughout the remainder of 2001 and we save a bit of cash (we're almost certainly going to the States for a wedding in March, but there's a lot of stuff we could only have done this time). Alternative holiday destinations? Long weekends? Suggestions welcome.

On the main topic, I think I'm basically searching for crucial things we just haven't thought of, which tip the scales firmly one way or the other. Coin-tossing is not an option.

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[newness confirmed]

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you don't go you're cancelling stuff and banking on maybes. I say go for it anyway. Admittedly I don't think things through well a lot of the time, but what the heck. I wish I was there right now, albeit for different reasons.

― Paul Strange, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you choose not to, I would hope it would be for the reasons you mentioned concerning Pam's sister's baby. I wouldn't put it off due to geopolitical fears. For one thing, the chances of being blown out of the sky are still statistically minimal. For another, things might NEVER get better.

― dave q, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I will let you know after I fly home to the UK later today... no, really. The US is a very strange place to be a foreigner right now (I lived here for 15 years, and I'm treated like a foreigner... that says something right there.) or even to be an American who doesn't look 100% European. Strange atmosphere. I don't fear planes or public transport, but I do fear some Americans right now. I wouldn't want to be travelling here during a war. But that's just me. Right now I don't plan on coming back to the US ever again, even if we are ordered to tour in January, but that may change if the memories of what I saw last Tuesday ever go away.

― kate, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would probably go. I was thinking of visiting Boston in the near- ish future myself, and current events aren't putting me off. But, like Kate says, I'd be a bit loth to go if I wasn't as pinky white as I am.

― DV, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that being able to see friends and family at a time like this might be just what the doctor orders. It might not be all crazy fun, but it might be good for the hearts of those involved. Maybe you could go down to Florida and see Pam's sister there during Week 2? You could still go to Disney World and to the beaches (sunny and nice).

If I had scheduled a trip to Michigan this week I would have been a bit worried about the 3 hour wait to board planes, and possibly feel a weird being in a super-patriotic environment after being here during the catastrophe.
Funnily enough, here I feel the need to state the American point of view to the people I work/live with, but I think in American I would feel the need to state the feelings/debate that were going on over here.

One last good point! With mail from the US getting over to the UK a bit slower now, you might run out of your supply of american foodstuffs! I just don't know what I'd do w/o my lucky charms.

― marianna, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am bringing back bizarre stuff like certain flavours of Rice-A-Roni (tried to get Kraft Velveeta dinner, but couldn't) and Jiffy Pop in a pan (will probably be confiscated for looking like a bomb through an X-ray) and candy corn... oh, the bizarre things that anyone looking through my luggage will find. Yes, I have a 70s vintage Saville Row suit, a ton of books on Japanese illustration and Jiffy Pop. What kind of bizarre terrorist would that make me to be? I'm a Japanese terrorist trying to infiltrate Chancery Row in my suit, and explode large amounts of popcorn at them. Indeed.

― kate, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Awww, cute pinky white DG. May I see? I collects hot!I gots me name in print on the tv Hooot! specail!

― Pennysong Hanle y, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think Hanle y's surpassed himself this time.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

GO. I've had my eye on your house for a while now. Lads, get the vans and the pliers.

― Alasdair, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Did I tell you we would have been in the same aeroport (Washington) but half an hour later? It feels extremely weird. Anyhow we decided to move the trip a few weeks later. Now we are going to San Francisco next week. I AM SO NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS FEKKING TRIP. But we are still going. I think. Not hope.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would go anyway. Even after everything that's happened to me in the last week I'd go. If you don't feel like taking the internal flight (and I don't know if I would) hire a car or even better take the train sleepers in the US are good if expensive and slow. However relaxing if you get a sleeping car birth Amtrak for details

― Ed, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, well. Thanks for the suggestions. Although the consensus here seems to be pro-trip, I'm afraid to say we've just sent the e-mails and filled out the online forms to cancel the whole thing. Much of our enthusiasm for the holiday has evaporated over the last week, and the subtext of most of the communication from over the pond has been "Don't come" or "Come later".

I think Pam's sister's reluctance to fly up from Florida (Ed: to clarify, we weren't the ones flying internally - our plan involved a train down from NYC to DC around day 4 [which I've done before, and loved] and a hire-car from then on, allowing us trips to Baltimore, Portsmouth, VA and so on) was the deciding factor. That means the whole four-generation meet-up at Virginia Beach wasn't going to occur, which was sort of the defining aspect of this trip; we'll see several NYC/DC friends soon enough over here (or maybe we won't), and there's always next Spring.

Besides, I need to stay put (with something heavy-yet-throwable by the bed) if that Maclean character has designs on my It's Immaterial box-set.

[Apologies for the silly personal nature of this thread. I hope it now mutates into something more interesting. Or vanishes.]

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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