This first post is a bit of a cheat, really, because I actually wrote this journal entry on our first night in London. So all I'm doing right now is copying my words from page to screen. I will add in the details where I see fit, however, and then rely on my memory for the days which followed that Thursday.
8:55 PM
We made it! Against all odds. I'm sitting next to Kate on our hotel bed (not sure why we booked one double bed instead of two twins?). She is lying rather peacefully, snoring loudly and occasionally sleep-talking about corners. Apparently she didn't sleep last night because she was so worried about us not finding each other today at Heathrow. Which very nearly happened, and which is a tragic novel in itself that I will get to in a moment.
I woke this morning just before my alarm clock went off at 5:30. I was wide-awake immediately, but was still surprised at how pitch-black it was outside. I finished packing and getting ready (and, by the way, I left my adapter and converter in the wall in my room in Dublin... soooo now my appliances are useless. Including my camera, if it dies!), enjoyed breakfast and a cup of tea, and was out the door at 6:45. I walked to the bus stop in Dalkey to catch the air-coach to DUB, and it was such a nice walk. The temperature was just around freezing at that point, but the sun was just coming up over the houses down the street and I was walking towards it the whole way. I was at the stop by 7, on the bus a few minutes later, and then I settled in for the hour drive. I can't remember much about the airport - it feels like ages ago. I do remember that I had a window seat in the very last row of the cabin, next to a nice old British couple who tried to give me tips on how to get from Terminal 1 (where we were landing) to Terminal 5 (where Kate was). The woman seemed to think my mission a brave and impossible one, because as she said, "We tried to get from 1 to 5 last year and got hopelessly lost for hours!" Great. I remember, too, that I was fighting sleep the whole time - and that it was so cloudy and gray outside that I couldn't see anything except during take-off and landing. About the time that the British couple was making me feel a bit panicky about the airport, we landed. I found the Underground easily enough and got to Terminal 5, thinking that the worst was over. Ha.
Suffice it to say, culture differences will be our downfall. Kate and I had arranged that we'd meet at her gate, which is a safe place to find people in American airports. The trouble was, in Europe, you CAN'T meet people at their gates without a boarding pass of your own. Come to think of it, I should have known that after my hectic and harrowing adventures at the Dublin Airport... but I forgot. So Kate, true to our bargain, hung around Gate 17 for an hour while I prayed that she'd find out that she HAD to come out for me to find her. We both apparently spoke to every airport employee in the country. If only ONE person had contacted a fellow employee on the opposite side of the gate, or if they had compared notes in some way, we would have found each other just fine - but nobody thought of that. I knew that Kate would wait at her gate until I found her, because that's what she had promised to do... so I resigned myself to the fact that my first day or two or three in England may very well be spent waiting in the airport for my sister to give up and come out. Anyway - it's all too terrible and stressful and depressing to recall. The main thing is that almost three hours after Kate's plane landed, she came out the gate marked "International Arrivals", where I'd been looking for her in every group that passed by. I ducked under the fence and ran to her. We hugged, we cried, we laughed... we were a whole movie scene all on our own, only better - because our happiness was real.
Even now I can't believe she's here. It's so odd and out of place - and even though, so far, London has been a series of wrong turns, sore feet and cloud-bursts, her presence makes me feel like I am home.
We took the Tube from Heathrow to the city, and took a bus further in. We got off too early, though, and spent the next hour wandering the streets of Northern London in the pouring rain. That, however, is another tragic saga that doesn't need telling. But eventually we found our hotel, and we let our clothes dry for an hour or two while we recuperated in our room. Then we walked to the corner Tesco (I do love that handy place) and bought a bag of plain bagels, a block of white cheddar, ham, and two bottles of Stella Artois - tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch. We are so ingenious, by the way. The only instruments for dining we had in our room were two cups, two saucers, and two little teaspoons - so we used the spoons to slice our cheese and bagels. It was lovely, eating our humble (but creative and well-earned) dinner on a bed in a London hotel on a rainy afternoon.
Tomorrow we've got big plans and a crazy itinerary. Hopefully we'll get to see it all... but right now, I'm content to sit here next to one of my very favorite people on earth as she dreams of turning corners.
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