Thoughts from Heathrow

It's 4:30 a.m., GMT, and a cast of thousands grumbles or sleeps its way through the night. Having spent the last 3 hours sleeping uncomfortably on an unpadded bench not well suited for a recumbent form, I am empathetic with those who continue to try to sleep.

I'm on my way back home. How did this happen, since the last time I slept overnight at Heathrow I vowed never to repeat the performance? Well, a series of unfortunate events conspired against my resolve.

The triggering event was a large storm that moved over Britain and on across the continent. This storm brought with it torrential rains, including a ½ hour gully washer that flooded all runways at Heathrow. As a result, flight operations at Heathrow were shut down completely for 3 hours. As a result of this 3 hour delay, all the planes that had not departed stayed in their bays. This gave no room for any incoming planes once flight operations resumed. Flights from overseas were allowed to land after the worst of the flooding had subsided, but they were stranded in queues on the tarmac.

Our flight arrived at 9 p.m., only ½ hour late, but it was 10:30 before the plane came to a final stop, and a half hour after that that busses arrived to transport us to the Terminal. At midnight, the serpentine queue that led to British customs had dwindled and I finally passed through. It was better in the queue, where I struck up a conversation with a woman and her son from Los Angeles. Another half hour retrieving luggage from amidst the hundreds of pieces of baggage, and I was ready to stake out a spot for sleeping. What impudent optimism! Yes, I am able to find a bench with a free seat, surrounded by a Dutch couple on one side and a large group of oriental people on the other (Korean? I can't tell the difference in the various oriental languages.) The Dutch couple appear to be able to drift off to sleep, but my other neighbors are happily chattering away, a cold draft chilled me whenever the nearby outside door was opened, and I seemed unable to squirm into a comfortable position between the seat, my daypack, laptop bag and the small suitcase.

About 3 a.m., I admit defeat, and move to the next floor up, taking the opportunity to change out of short sleeve shirt and cargo shorts into long sleeve shirt and pants. I curl up on the floor of an airport pub, and get a few winks in before waking up briefly, starting the above paragraph, and then lapsing back into oblivion. Sleep deprivation from the previous 6 weeks hits with a vengeance, and I fall asleep while in mid-sentence.

6 a.m., and I am startled awake by the announcement made by the manager of the pub in which I'm sleeping that the pub opens in ½ hour and everyone needs to get up and out. The dozen or so people who have taken refuge here join me in bleary-eyed exile, stumbling toward washrooms to freshen up. By 7 a.m. I am queueing up for American Airlines' check-in. I have joined half of the free world in this queue - by 7:30 we have barely moved ¼ of the distance to the counter. But as more employees stream in, the line starts going faster, and by 8:30, I'm through the line and on my way to the security check.

I pick up a copy of the last Harry Potter, and start reading it in line for security, get told that I need to drop out of the line until just two hours prior to my flight, get back in line at 9:30, spend the next 2 hours reading H.P. and glancing up at the departure information monitor every 3 minutes to find out which gate the flight departs from. 15 minutes before scheduled departure, gate 13 shows up on the monitor. With only the briefest reflection on how appropriate the flight number is, I go through yet another security and passport check, and our flight leaves at 12:40, only an hour behind schedule. Almost immediately, I fall asleep, and wake up somewhere over the Atlantic near Iceland, watch a movie , fall asleep, read H.P., fall asleep …

Jeanne picks me up at LAX , and two and a half hours later, I'm surrounded by my family, home at last.