Day Twenty Seven – August Stupidity in June

June 30th; I am still awake. As of writing the last entry, I have had no sleep. It has not been the longest night, however…

Four Thirty. Our airport shuttle is booked. We all meet downstairs, in the lobby. People have been up to various things. I have stayed downstairs to catch up on my Travels and think. Kate and Ryan got some sleep, and I believe that Hendo and Ben played Jenga and had a yelling party. They may have had some rest.

We checked out and jumped in the shuttle when it arrived, along with two other Algerian guys. It was still dark, and the city still slept. The shuttle did not move. ‘What are we doing? When are we going?’ we asked.
‘Five thirty. We have to wait for another pick-up.’
‘What?’
‘Five thirty. Takes one hour to pick up, one hour to get to airport.’
‘Where is the other person we are picking up?’
‘Around the corner.’
‘What?!’
‘We pick them up in an hour.’
‘So what are we doing?’
‘Waiting.’
‘Take us to the airport! We will miss our flight!’
‘I cannot, I must pick them up!’
‘Then why did you not pick us up at five thirty?!’
‘Go outside and have a smoke, whatever.’
‘No!’
It went on like that for a long while. The guy didn’t understand why we didn’t understand, but we didn’t understand how he didn’t understand that we didn’t understand. It turns out the business did not understand. They assigned one shuttle to two pickups within thirty seconds of each other but booked an hour apart. Let’s just say we were all annoyed. He drove down to the next stop. We got our bags out to get in a taxi. I would ring and abuse the bus company later; I just wanted to make it to the airport on time and intact. Intact might be too much to ask from a New York taxi. He told us he would get us there in time, and by then so much time had been wasted arguing about it that it was not worth out while leaving.

The people came out a little early anyway, so we were on our way. One more stop and then onto the airport. We checked in, fairly painlessly, but still had a couple of hours to kill. I got a sausage and bacon bagel. The boys got McDonalds. Kate got a smoothie. Ben and I got smoothies. My bagel was terrible. I went to the little DVD and music store. The girl at the desk loved me. And by that I mean she may well have walked out of the store and got on the plane with me if I had asked. She obviously hated working mornings. I pointed out as much. Laughing and giggling she got up to get something down from the cupboard for me. She had to stand on old boxes. She nearly fell off and brained herself. More laughing. By the time I left I was totally in. Nevertheless I left. I considered handing over a card, but that would just cause trouble. I bet her name was Michelle though. She looked like a Michelle.

I got on the plane. I fell asleep. I woke up with two hours of the flight left and started watching 10,000BC. I had heard the movie was terrible. Nevertheless, the narrator was Omar Sharif, who plays Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia, just about the best character this side of the sea. My neck was yelling at me, a devil on my shoulder caused by my own sins of sleeping on a plane. And yes, as Kate will attest, I had my mouth open. I always do.

We got into Heathrow. It was easy to get out. Caught a train, got our bags, hung around as I gathered up some info. I didn’t know exactly where our place was and couldn’t find any subway maps, so we got a taxi. That’s the bad thing about the future. Unmanned info booths are unmanned… and the only way to get a computer to do or tell you anything is if you know what it is you want to know. So either you can’t use it at all, or you have to deal with an exponential amount of info booths in order to learn how to use every other info booth. It would be like learning English from an English dictionary.

Everyone was tired in any case, so we got in and headed out to Kilburn. Sixty five pounds! I think I will look for a bit longer next time. Still, we made it, got our key from the deposit box and went on in. Very fancy. Six beds, little kitchen, bathroom to ourselves. Very fancy. Same price as all the bad places we stayed at in New York. We soon found out that it was no consolation. That is because everything in London costs about eight times as much as it does back home. We went for a walk to find some shops and conduct general reconnaissance. We got lost. We approached a man to ask where a store was. He looked like he thought we were going to rob him. Fair enough, four hooded boys walking around in the dark. I am a fairly imposing figure.

The shops were eventually found. It was a long walk. It was like crossing the desert compared to finding stores in New York. The only thing still open was Big Bite and a terrible supermarket. I got an average piece of battered Cod and some terrible chips and the guys got some chips. We went to the supermarket. I use the prefix ’super’ reluctantly. I got some water and ginger beer, as well as some fruit for Kate. I don’t get that girl at all.

We ate our food, unpacked a few of our things and went to bed. It was a later night than I expected. The next morning was later than I expected too.