Getting There

Some things of note about getting there:

I had a layover at London Heathrow airport. Everyone I knew who'd flown through Heathrow said that connecting flights almost never leave from the same terminal you arrived at so what seems like a long time between flights (almost 2 hours) is really just barely enough time to get from one plane to the next. My connecting flight however did leave from the same terminal as my arriving flight so I got to sit in Heathrow airport which struck me as remarkably similar to any number of other airports I'd been in with the noteable exception of the fact that the departures board doesn't list the gate that the flights are leaving from until about 15 minutes prior to take off.

I won't be seeing London (except from the air) for another month or so, but I've been hearing about it for ages and not just tips about connecting flights through Heathrow. One of my best mates (to use the local jargon) is from a town near Reading and she's been telling me about London since I met her (almost 4 years ago). The main thing most people (both natives and foreign travelers to the UK) note about England is that the food there is really bad. I've heard it said that there are only two things the Brits do well: tea and sandwhiches. That's not really the kind of warning that works on me as I happen to love tea and sandwhiches. Tea, as a meal, with mini sandwhiches and pastries on a three tiered plate, is one of my favorite things. Tea and sandwhiches may be the thing I'm looking forward to most about London. Even on the plane, British Airways by the way, the tea and sandwhiches were good.

But London is more than a month away and right now I'm in Switzerland. I can't tell you much about it though as my entire time here so far has been spent in the airport or on trains after dark. Or asleep, but not much that.

Instead of being exhausted (having only slept about 4 hours in two days), I just can't sleep at all. I got up at 6:30AM on Monday back in Seattle because I had a final to take at 8:30AM. My plane took off at 7:30PM and 16 hours later I got off the train in Locarno (at about 9:30PM local time). I couldn't get to sleep and I couldn't stay asleep. So, here I sit watching the sun rise over Lago Majora (in the Swiss/Itallian Alps). I imagine I'll be paying for the sleep deprivation in a couple of days, but right now I think this isn't such a bad way to start my vacation.