Leaving London

Some of the rest you might already know. We had breakfast one last time at our hotel, packed our stuff, and checked out - not without incident. A new credit card system called "chip and PIN" has been strictly enforced since February 14 of this year in London and possibly throughout the entire U.K. requiring users of European-issued "chipped" credit cards to enter PIN numbers to use them - and woe unto you if you don't know your PIN number because you've never ever had to use it before. Fortunately, my credit cards were issued in the U.S. where "chip and PIN" is not yet in effect, so we were OK.

We hiked from our hotel to Paddington Station, dragging along our luggage newly-burdened with die-cast double-decker buses and pencil sharpeners in the shape of Big Ben. We took the Underground back to Victoria Station - beautiful and full of light in the daytime - and found our way to the Gatwick Express. The roomy, comfortable train glided easily out of the station on its southward course, past the vastness of the brick exterior of Victoria Station, past the industrial harshness and sky-scraping apartment buildings of South London, past the cramped tenements and row houses, past the chaotic garden plots known as the allotments, past gradually thinning houses giving way to fields and farmhouses and horses, and eventually past the highways that ring London, including one with a sign for Croydon. It took me a while to remember that this was referenced in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ("not bloody Martin Smith from Croydon", a line which was not included in the movie version.) We also went through a tunnel at one point, which caused the Frenchman sitting across from me who was speaking to a woman on his cell phone to murmur a soft, drawn-out "Merrrrrde" after he was cut off in mid-conversation.

We got to Gatwick without any problems, but arrived too early to check our bags. We hung out a bit and got something to eat at the airport's McDonald's - the Happy Meal toy we got there, a Noddy figure with a garage door and storybook, is about ten times more complicated than anything I've seen in an American Happy Meal lately. By the time we made it back to the check-in desk, more than half of the people on our flight were there, too, waiting to check in. After check-in we were sent to a huge and vague central waiting area because Gatwick won't tell you what gate your flight is leaving from until it's time for you to board. I guess they like to keep their options open.

It was while we were waiting that we stopped in at the airport's Harrods (we never got to go to Harrods in London, even though it was quite close to our hotel) and at an excellent bookstore where I bought V For Vendetta.

After much anxious jumping up and checking of flight status displays, it was finally time for us to board. We made it onto the flight and soon were in the air.

We were heading back to Ireland.