Our flight was early. So early, in fact, that unless we’d been tired enough (and, let’s face it, prepared enough) to go to bed at 8 or 9pm the evening before, sleeping was just not worthwhile. So we didn’t.<\/p>\n
I left many things to the last minute, as usual, not all of which were related to the trip. The most stupid of which was getting together my materials to send to the state to be authorized to pursue Alternative 4 teacher certification (which is: in areas where a critical shortage of teachers has been noted, people with no certification can start teaching right away as long as they are deemed qualified by reason of their college courseload.) This was not a difficult form to fill out, it just required me to locate a large envelope in which to mail things, and to gather up my college transcripts to send along as well. <\/p>\n
However, at about 2am I found that the transcript needed to be unopened, and I didn’t have one from Wellesley that was so. So I stuffed another envelope, this one to Wellesley, requesting the transcript to be sent directly to the state. And after running up and down the stairs in search of large manila envelopes, I couldn’t find any. (Note: I found them in about 5 minutes after we got home. Argh.) By the time we needed to leave, I still had not managed to locate something in which to send the form, so I threw it all into my bag, intending to purchase an envelope at the airport and mail everything from there. I knew the form would take a week or two to process, and I was hoping to get it out before I left the country for a week.<\/p>\n
We departed the house around 4:50, not too much later than the original plan. A stop for gas also provided an unexpected chance to buy some Krispy Kreme donuts (for those not from the northeast, there are a grand total of 3 official Krispy Kreme stores within 50 miles and none closer than 30). They weren’t fresh, but at 5am, one is not picky that way. <\/p>\n
We parked at Alewife and managed to make our way to the airport without incident. Our luggage was checked in and here I made an unexpected mistake. Assuming that there would be a shop selling envelopes and a mailbox in the terminal, I decided to wait until after we’d gone through security to deal with the mail I still had stuffed in my bag. Ha.<\/p>\n
After a lengthy process, we were past the checkpoint and I soon discovered just how wrong I was. None of the stores had any envelopes or office supplies available at all. And to make matters worse, I was told that the only mailbox was in the non-secured area! I approached the agent at our gate, who was evasive. The airlines weren’t supposed to take mail from passengers, he claimed, but he might be able to do it if I came back in 10 or 15 minutes. Puzzled, but sure that I didn’t have enough time to leave the gate area and make my way back through security, I returned to my seat. After a while the man left the counter and I went back to talk to the woman there. She took my envelope without a word. <\/p>\n
I decided that since the Wellesley request would take several days, I would wait until we got back to mail the actual form to the state. Not as if I had any choice — I wasn’t about to mail it back from the UK.<\/p>\n
Our plane was late in arriving at the gate, and was very slow to take off. But international flights are a world of difference from the slummy in-US types we usually take: the plane was very large, so our seats had plenty of leg room, individual screens, and felt bigger than your average cramped DC-10. Thus the delay was not too awful to bear. <\/p>\n
The flight was uneventful, save for a poor little kid whose ears were obviously killing him as we took off and landed. I felt so bad for him, but also very grateful that I finally grew out of that problem! (Plane flights when I was little were a real nightmare.)<\/p>\n
After landing at Heathrow, we went through customs, which took a while. And then it was time to find the Tube. Since we were staying in London and not planning on going anywhere outside of the city, we’d elected not to rent a car and thus have to deal with the nightmare of trying to park it. But this meant we needed to use public transportation for everything (or hire a cab — yeah right. This isn’t Amazing Race.) Finding the Tube was complicated by the fact that the station at our terminal was closed for construction. We were told we had to take a bus to the other terminal and get on the subway there, but we found that we were also allowed to take the Express Train for free between the terminals, as long as we didn’t stay on it to go in to London itself. So that’s what we did.<\/p>\n
By the time we arrived at Earl’s Court station it was quite dark, and it was starting to get late as well. Nearly 8 or 9pm. We were exhausted and hauling a large amount of luggage, and found ourselves a bit disoriented as we exited the station and started attempting to locate the road the hotel was on. We wandered in the wrong direction for some time before circling back and re-checking the street map in the station. Our second effort was more successful and we found the hotel and checked in.<\/p>\n
Or at least we tried. The man at the desk first suggested that we wanted a room on the basement floor, because they were larger. However, when he took us down there, the room was already occupied! A bit concerned now by the apparent disorganization of the hotel staff, we all went back to the front desk to get the key to a different room. This one was free, and we went inside to collapse with our stuff. The room was very small, in square footage probably about the same size as J’s room, but with part of that partitioned off to make a bathroom. But it was more or less clean so there we weren’t going to complain.<\/p>\n
We watched television for a bit (TNG was on) and then fell asleep. We wanted to get up early the next day to get started on sightseeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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