Today was mostly a travel day, going from London to New
York. I was happy that I woke up on
time, about 15 minutes before my alarm, got ready, then finished packing from
last night. I am stopping to New York for a few days to
visit my daughter. She graduated from
NYU last spring and is currently living in Brooklyn. While I was eating breakfast, I surprised
another of my host’s overnight guests when he came out to get something to
eat. I smiled and said hi; he made a
sound that was probably supposed to be a greeting.
To get to the airport, I took the Jubilee line to Green Park,
transferred to Picadilly, then rode to the airport. Going through security was pretty fast until they flagged my bag. I didn't even have to go through the x-ray thing. They asked me to unzip every zipper and she took everything out of my backpack. She put my electronics (portable charger, phone, camera, camera battery, etc.) in a tub and sent it through the machine again. One of the agents said that sometimes what they see on the x-rays doesn't make sense so they flag it. After I was deemed safe, she said that it was probably a combination of my almonds and electronics, that organics and electrics like batteries kind of mess with the x-rays.
Just like on the way to London, I had no gate
or seat listed on my boarding pass. I
went to the departures area to find out my gate, but the board said that it would
announce the gate at 12:30 (for my 1:30 flight).
Heathrow has a huge seating area with a few flight screens in it and
doesn’t announce a gate until it is closer to boarding. At 12:25 I got my bags and went to the flight
screen—gate 13. So I made my way there,
figuring I’d get my seat before going to the bathroom and filling my water
bottle. Well, I asked for an aisle seat
and got one and had to show her my passport.
Then she waved me into the gate area.
I asked if there was a toilet in this area or if I should go to the one I passed and come
back. She replied to just use the one on
the plane; that I could board now! So I
walked directly out to the plane without a huge line of people. There were some people already getting
settled. It was incredibly
relaxing! Much less stress than the huge
lines of people queuing up to get on. I
am seat 64C—last row. I love sitting in
the last row because I can recline my seat without worrying about the person
behind me. Slowly the plane filled up
(the person between me and the window was already there when I arrived—only two
seats on the outsides). While I was
waiting for my gate my daughter texted me that she found out that she has to
work and wouldn’t be home when I arrived, but was going to bed (early am in New
York). I simply said that we’d figure
it out when I arrived. She obviously
needed to sleep if she had to work
later.
It turned out that my daughter's roommate was home and could let me in. She then texted me to meet her in Manhattan, she had an idea for dinner. We went to Spaghetti Incident and had, you guessed it, spaghetti! I had meatballs. We also got a bread appetizer with ricotta and figs. Then back to her apartment. She is letting me sleep on her bed, she'll sleep on the loveseat tonight. I've been awake for way too many hours, it's almost 5 am in London. I've been awake for almost 22 hours. Time for bed!
Here's a picture our tour guide took of us and emailed:
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| We are all brandishing out wants and saying a spell! |
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