Up early on Thursday, 5/15, to finish packing and run errands, then take my mother to a birthday lunch. Left for the airport around 3:15 p.m., arrived by 4, checked in, and had a long wait. The flight was much faster than I expected, by maybe 45 minutes, but was also more
jammed than I expected. I will be investigating options for more seat room for the return flight.
The flight attendant ran out of the beef stew dinner just as they as they got to me; the chicken teriyaki was pretty darned bland. The alleged breakfast served toward the end of the flight was inedibly awful; a granola bar, blueberry muffin, and orange juice. Thank goodness for the cashews!
Cleared customs, then bought a SIM for my phone and fumbled with it for a while, because the Vodaphone SIM is a nanoSIM with an adaptor for larger slots. Well, it works! And I will have to buy a pile of data, no surprise considering how much I'll be using the map functions.
Taking the Heathrow Express and a cab made luggage handling easier than taking the Tube but was a good deal more expensive, and the cab from Paddington to Liverpool St. Station (more or less) was slooooow.
The apartment is as advertised and very comfortable, except for the mattress, which is bad. Also, it's a non-smoking apartment, but there are tobacco smells here and there, perhaps creeping in from downstairs or outside?
Walked over to dinner with Zerbinetta and Finn (Where's Runnicles), then to
Gawain.
