London Heathrow

(wrote these posts last Thursday or Friday, finally posting it)

I’m standing in a Harrod’s gift shop, holding a tin of English Breakfast Tea and a oval tin of butter biscuits. Then I hear the flight “last boarding call” for London-Paris and I shove the stuff back on the shelf and take off.

It’s 6:30am and I’ve been up all night from Boston and it’s really 3:30am H.B.C. (Halley Body Clock time).

I feel like I’m moving in cement to even try to hurry up. The jetlag hangover has begun.

I get to the gate, get in my seat, get ready to be in Paris in 45 minutes and no such luck, it’s fogged in and I’ll be there for 2 more hours after rushing to sit and go no where. I fall over sideways and sleep the whole time, thrilled I find three seats to stretch out in.

The flight attendants are two young guys and two a bit older girls who are absolutely silly and having fun playing and goofing around with one another. Business men on their morning trip to Paris are all upset they won’t get there on time. The pilot allows us all to get up and run around a bit. The salesguy jump on their cell phones and quickly let everyone important know their important meeting is not going to happen.

I listen to three guys in front of me talking with three very different UK accents and I remember how much I love to hear Brits speak. There’s a softness and politeness to their speech that I love. I used to find it too polite and conservative, but I’ve grown up a bit. One has a lilt of Scotland, another sounds a little more Cockney-ish and the third is perfectly BBC-like.