| Ian, Seth, Qarin, Robert, Eric |
Heathrow is also one fucked up airport. And I mean that in the nicest way. Where else do you disembark from a huge Boeing 777 aircraft onto the tarmak so that you can take a bus to the terminal? Nowhere else that I know of. The bus, of course, drops you off by a service entrance which opens into a twisty maze of passages, all alike. If there weren't just one way to go, there'd be a problem. And at the end of the twisty passages are two plain double doors which you push and whoom! there you are standing in the middle of a main hallway in the terminal. I imagine that it's the same feeling a rat has as it falls from an overhead grate into the middle of the dinner table.
Anyway, we got in at about 7:00am. Passport control went pretty smoothly. The guy hassled me a little bit because my passport is extremely beat-up--I carried it around with me for the better part of 18 months abroad, I used it for ID in California before I got my California driver's license, and I'd put it through the wash--but other than that, it was uneventful.
It's always wierd to be disgorged into the non-secure area again--especially when it's a foriegn airport. It took us a little while to gather a sufficient plan. The plan that emerged was simple:
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| British £5 Note |
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Money came from the wall in exactly the way it usually does, only with a different look. British money is multi-colored (or should I say, coloured) and sports a picture of the Queen. It's a nice change from the drab green of US bills. But of course, Scotland has its own money, too.
| Ian, Seth, Qarin, Robert, Eric |
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| Seth rides the Underground |
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The Underground was clearly marked, but it was a long walk away. On the route here were all sorts of outlines of famous buildings and monuments along the walls--the Tajmahal, the Capital Building, the Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, etc.--so we were entertained for a while trying to figure out what was what.
When we finally reached the Tube and got on board, we saw that it would take us the better part of an hour to get to Kings Cross. But at least we didn't have to change lines.
Getting the train to Edinburg was a bit more tricky. When we arrived at the station, we found that a train for Edinburgh was leaving very soon, so we dashed off to the platform and tried to find some space. Since we didn't have reserved seats, we had to scout the train for unreserved spaces. And unfortunately, we couldn't find any. So we went to see if there was another way.
The helpful man at the booth told us to take the 10:40 train since it was less crowded than the 10:20 train, as a rule. He also mentioned that car E was almost always left unreserved and if we could find a spot there, we'd be set. And right before we left, he mentioned that we'd have to stand in queue C until the train was posted on the board.
Well, queue C was huge. We thought that our chances of getting a seat were slim to nil. But then we realized that the British never seem to pass up the opprotunity to queue and in fact most people all ready had reservations. And sure enough, we were some of the first people in to car E. We even managed to score a table.