This will not be a post about the Golden Age of Travel. However it represents a different Golden Age. I was sorting through various photo files in iPhoto and came across these three images I snapped in 2005 on the way to my first AMT Torrent in Espana. I made mention of a different Golden Age. This was a time when traveling internationally to model concorsos was new and exciting. Before 2003 I had only attended local competitions in Los Angeles and a yearly AMPS show in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Although I really enjoyed the April trips to Maryland the European shows appealed to my wanderlust. After two Euro-Militares in England I was curious to see more of the European concorsos. I had seen a photo report of AMT Torrent by Adam Wilder who was at the time time living and working for MIG Productions in Barcelona. I had by this time already visited Espana several times for work and fallen in love with both the country and its weather. Espana also has some of the very best miniature modelers and painters in the EU.
April 2005. I boarded a British Airways flight from LAX bound for Barcelona. It was to be a long flight, but in business class it wouldn’t be so bad. I look back at these photos and smile. BA’s biz class has changed a lot in the twelve years since I took these photographs. The in-flight entertainment screens are tiny compared to what you’ll find today even in tourist class. Although the seats were full recline to flatbed in 2005 they were very narrow. No problem for me, usually I fall asleep before take-off and can sleep on a bed of nails. The privacy curtain then was a fan shaped divider that didn’t offer much privacy from the stranger sitting beside you. Fortunately I had a window seat and the seat next to me was unoccupied on the flight outbound.
As I recall I otherwise quite enjoyed BA’s level of service then. Mind you this was early days for me and just traveling business class was special and part of the journeys excitement. Please excuse the quality of the photographs. Although 2005 seems recent history to me, this was pre-iPhone days and my crap mobile took even crappier photographs. Travel and technology has changed a lot.
This last photograph is a good laugh. Before I was a seasoned traveller I travelled
rather heavy. Titanium Macbook and dvd movies. Obviously in this case the Cary Grant film “Operation Petticoat.” What was I thinking? I could have just watched a film on the inflight entertainment. Dummy! All part of the journey. Feet up on a flight to Barcelona, watching a favorite film, a cuppa and the latest issues of Model Military International and Panzer Aces. As they say…them were the days. Believe it or no, I still have this Macbook. Quite dated by current Apple standards, it serves me well as a back up computer in the States.
Five days from today my fiancé and I will be heading off to England for the Euro concorso reboot. Rather than a eleven hour flight it’s just a short hop from Barcelona El Prat to Gatwick and down to Folkestone in time for late lunch. You can depend on me to provide a full report.