Today was the first time on vacation that I have felt stress, and I didn’t like it one bit. My stress was all about time, and catching planes, and packing, and general travel shit.

When I was with Roy, he was very careful with time. I am almost always the person who Minds The Clock in any given group, but he was actually doing it without complaint. So I let him :)… but on my own, I had to do that, at least for this last day.

I woke up and tried to finish packing… then I had to repack. Then repack again. All I had to take home was a pile of postcards, yet somehow my suitcase was not repacking properly. That was about an hour I hadn’t planned on.

Next, I freaked out and thought I was missing my checkout time. By the time I had my clothes on and suitcase put together I was dripping with sweat. I down to the lobby, checked out, and asked them to hold my bags while I went out for a coffee.

I browsed a few of the yucky souvenir stores, but realized I couldn’t buy anything in them without feeling totally retarded (with one exception: I bought a beer mug with the tube map on it. 1) the tube map is awesome and 2) I needed something to drink beer in since I bought some at a store out of frustration of getting a good one anywhere else).

Then I grabbed a coffee, grabbed my bags, and took off. This involved walking a block to the subway and heading one stop to Paddington where I could catch the Heathrow Express (for which I had a retuirn ticket from my arrival). Once at Paddington, I started to fall apart. There were signs telling me to use specific cars for specific Heathrow terminals, but I had no idea which terminal my plane left from. I forgot to check online.

I tested my phone - once again I had no problem locating a UK service provider, but it still wouldn’t dial. Ditto with internet. And for the first time since I left the US there was not a single internet cafe in eyesight. Grrr.

I hopped on a train that was leaving and crossed my fingers. I made the assumption that given how tourist oriented all of London is, that Terminal 1 would be the primary and international terminal. I got off at the Terminal 1/2/3 stop and headed for 1, which was a leap of faith given that terminal 1 was 500m to the right and terminals 2/3 were 500m to the left. There was no signage whatsoever until after I reached the main floor, and discovered I had guessed right. Yay.

Then, the self checkin worked like it should, the baggage check worked like it should, and getting through security worked like you hope…

I ran into Dan, a fellow Yahoo while waiting to board - on the same flight even. Somehow this didn’t surprise me.

The plane was the same one I flew out on - a 747, which means 3 seats left, 4 seats middle, and 3 seats right. I was on middle row aisle, which was better than any sort of middle situation… even better, when they finally closed down the doors, I nearly started crying with happiness to discover I had no immediate seatmate. I had luxurious shoulder room on either side of me. I was so happy I didn’t even fret when our departure was delayed for an hour or so while they figured out how to make the A/C work, how to close a cargo door, and most exciting, how to start one of the engines.

Finally, we took off. The flight was much more enjoyable than my first, thanks to the extra room, and completely uneventful. I watched several episodes of Babylon 5 on my iPod, napped a few times, and had 2 really tasty mini-bottles of red wine. The food didn’t suck either.

Magically I was literally swept through security and had my checked luggage in hand in about 2 minutes. Out the door to see Mom and Gram there to pick me up.

Home at last. Yay.

My ratings (5 point scale):

• Lyon: **** (4)
• Entrecasteaux: ***** (5)
• Marseille: —– (-5. nuclear bomb plzkthx)
• Munich: ***** (5)
• Dresden: ** (2)
• Berlin: *** (3)
• London: * (1)