Thanksgiving in the USA (2)
On Saturday, I flew to the United States in a British Airways Airbus A380. The aircraft was absolutely packed and I had to content myself with a window seat instead of my usual preferred aisle seat, but the two passengers to my side were fascinating. One was an American cyber security expert who voted for Donald Trump in Virginia; the other was an Anglo-American parliamentary assistant to a UK Government Minister who voted for Hillary Clinton in Ohio. So my debates about American (and British) politics began before we even took off just after noon.
When not engaged in discussion with them, I started to read a book entitled “Happiness By Design, written by Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics. After a flight of 8 hours 10 minutes, we landed at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC at – since there is a five hour time difference from the UK – 3.15 pm. The arrangements at Dulles – especially around the availability of our luggage – was chaotic, so it took me an hour and a half to clear all the formalities.
My hosts for my stay in the USA are Mike Grace, a retired official with the Communication Workers of America (the sister union to the Communication Workers Union with which I used to work) and his wife Laura, a retired high school teacher. I was met at the airport by Mike and driven the one and a half hour journey north of DC to their home in the small community of Brinklow, near the town in Olney in Montgomery county in the state of Maryland. In the car, we listened to a radio interview with Senator Bernie Sanders who failed to win the Democratic nomination for the presidential race and argued the need for a transformation of the Democratic Party.