Day 1 and Place 1: Heathrow, Terminal 2

"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport, '" wrote Douglas Noel Adams (Henceforth DNA) in The Long, Dark Tea-time of the 

Soul.  

And while the immortalized Heathrow Terminal 2 has cleaner lines than say, O'Hare or Reagan, it certainly doesn't have the charm of either Lihue or, let's face it, Santa Barbara. It does have escheresque escalators for watching people glide down as you rise up, or vice-versa, and softly grey-green walls that go on for uncountable kilometers when you've had no sleep and desperately want to find the luggage reclaim area.

All of which is to say, "We have arrived!"

Terminal 2, Heathrow airport had not been blown apart by a thunder god, but that might've been because the flight to Oslo wasn't for a few hours yet.

In fact, Heathrow was the emptiest, quietest airport I've been in (except for Santa Barbara). 

There was Someone of Consequence coming through behind us; someone we never saw, but whose presence was undeniable, given the loitering gangs of airport security employees in every walkway,  rows of gothy tweens in heavy eyeliner pressed against barriers at the arrivals exit, and the sheer number of expensive suits walking quickly while unabashedly talking into their wrists.

We dropped down to the tube, loaded up our borrowed Oyster Cards (Suzy, how did you manage to have -10p on your card, and why aren't you still being held in debtors' prison - or The Tower - for the offense?), and made our way to our flat in Islington via the Paddington and Northern lines.

We walked around our block twice; once for a very nice Turkish meal at a place that brought us a lot of yummy food that didn't really resemble very closely what we thought we'd ordered, and again to get the bare essentials necessary for a week's stay: tea, milk, bread, porridge, digestive biscuits, some almond croissants that looked good, ooooh! Raspberry jam, and THATS AWESOME! Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. Like I said, bare essentials. 

Then we collapsed.

Now we drink our tea and have our biscuits and melatonin.

See you in the morning!