London Travel Pt. 2: Mind the Gap

The flight itself was pretty much what I expected. I was a bit cramped in there because the guy in front of me was reclining and, well, even if he wasn’t it would have been a tight fit. I had to have my knees constantly at an angle so that they weren’t jammed into his seat. Instead, they were jammed awkwardly into the aisle. The in-flight entertainment system was pretty good. There was a robust choice of movies and music. I ended up watching Toy Story before settling in to listening to some of the music, jumping here and there as my whims dictated. While listening to the music, I caught maybe 30 minutes or so of sleep but it was really very uncomfortable for sleeping and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep much. Finally, we were approaching London. Probably the moment it all started to seem real to me was when we could finally see the ground and you realize that, yes, that’s actually England you are looking at. When all was said and done, we were on the ground around 9:00, a full two hours late. On the plus side, customs was a breeze.

Having landed, I called Ali who I had hoped to meet up with upon touchdown. I figure that she would probably have left Heathrow already given that I was so delayed. I was correct. No matter, I knew my plan. I immediately went for a Heathrow Express ticket. The machine didn’t really want to play nice. Eventually, thanks to a helpful employee, we got the ticket. He was of the opinion that the ten pound notes were “too new” for the machines. Then, I boarded the train, making sure to get off at Heathrow Central (Terminals 1, 2, 3) to get on the Express. I did that successfully and then settled in to a nice Heathrow Express ride to Paddington.

Paddington is a very intimidating place. There are just throngs of people shopping, eating, waiting to by train tickets, boarding trains etc. I was momentarily a bit overwhelmed, but soon enough I saw the sign pointing the way to taxis and headed in that direction. The cab stand is very organized. They really do a great job of marshalling people to taxis and really move them out. I told the driver Manresa Road and he knew it. It was just a 9 pound cab ride from Paddington to the IES Hall. Overall, I think I chose the right travel option. All told, it only cost me 26.50 pounds from Heathrow to the residence hall. That’s including a pound tip to the driver. I could have saved an extra 10 pounds if I had taken the Heathrow Connect but it's only half as fast..

Gary the IES guy told us that, all things considered, the tube is easily the cheapest way to go, but hauling luggage around the tube sounds like a pain and this was very easy indeed.

A word about “Mind the Gap.” On the trains, there is a gap between the train and the platform. In America, we would say “watch your step”. Here the term is very definitively “mind the gap”. I find this very charming.