Travel — 16-17 (and 18, to be honest) September

The day started innocently enough, with me waking before the sun rose. After a longer drive than I was expecting and a blessedly uneventful check-in and security screening, I had an uneventful flight to Minneapolis. I even had a window seat (my only window seat, although one of my Iceland Air ones should have been a window).

Bye, Washington...

The clouds stretched out below the plane like a landscape of their own. They’re oddly planar, with most of them based on distinct altitudes in the sky. I now want to be a pilot, because it would be worth all the time and money spent on obtaining a pilot’s license and the time away from home just to see the clouds from above on a regular basis. 

Because I was switching from a domestic flight to an international flight, I had to switch terminals. This entails a long walk, a tram, another walk, a lightrail, and a long walk to security. I nearly missed it, and I have a lot more sympathy for people running through airports to make connexions now. 

The flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik should have been a window seat, but I didn’t feel like ousting the person in what I believe was my seat. It was too bad, since there was the most beautiful sunset between the clouds, which were all deep blue. 

I got to Reykjavik (aka Keflavik, at least the airport) really early in the morning. I’ve also decided that I want to visit Iceland on a less transitory basis someday. It sounds interesting, and from what little of the scenery that I could see, it looks interesting. While I was hoping to get some pictures, some postcards, and maybe some nifty souvenirs, I was only there for a short amount of time. Maybe on the way back…  

I saw another sunrise in Reykjavik, which made two too many in less than 24 hours. Not that I'm bitter. Also, I want to put "Reykjavik" into this post as much as possible, since it still looks like a cat rolled on the keyboard.  

After 24 hours of travel on four hours of sleep, two catnaps, a cup of tea, and three coffees, I finally sat down at Heathrow terminal 5’s Giraffe Restaurant (I don’t know why they call it that) to sit down and type with my bags safely stowed at my feet and eat a real meal. I got the house salad and a “Hippy Hippy Shake Smoothie”, which advertised itself as containing some delicious sounding fruits. It’s a little thin and warm, but it tastes more substantial than blended white mochas. The house salad is kind of weird in the greens, and it has beets, but I can deal with that. The airport would be much more interesting if I had more space in my luggage and a place to abandon said luggage without having it mistaken for a bomb. 

Real food!

Aww, giraffe stir-stick thing... 

The view from Heathrow's British Airways terminal

The flight to Newcastle was my first real sleep in about 36 hours, and I was out like a light. It was great, and the flight even got in on time. Unfortunately, my luggage got lost, so I waited for an hour until the baggage carousel stopped before I stood in line for half an hour to register myself and my lost bag. By the time I finished with that, the University of Sunderland meet-n-greet team that was supposed to supply me with a free taxi had left (it was nearly midnight), and I had to make some calls. The number listed for Clanny House, my dorm, took me to some resident director-like person’s answering machine, so I lost £1.60 on that. I’m better at using payphones now, though, and I called a taxi recommended to me by Adam, the guy from Sunderland who lives in my flat and with whom I messaged on facebook. Adam is the fount of all knowledge in the otherwise entirely international flat: “Adam said this…” “Well, Adam told me that…” “I think Adam mentioned such-and-such…”

The taxi never came. I finally asked airport employees if it would be terribly rude to take a different taxi if the one I called never showed, and they thought that 50 minutes was far too long to get from Sunderland to Newcastle. I took the very expensive but readily available airport taxi, which cost me £45, which I paid with the last of my cash (thanks, Johnsons! The card would have cost me an extra 10%.) The airport taxi driver was very nice, and pointed out interesting little things along the way, including the ancestral home of George Washington. It used to be known as Wessington (I think), but it long since evolved into Washington. I got into my room with no problems, and set up my bed with the bedding pack that I ordered. The duvet and pillow are reminiscent of airplane pillows, and the duvet cover, pillowcase, and sheet are pretty bad quality. However, it’s better than nothing. 

The curtains and the duvet cover do not match.

Desk, message board, bookshelf

Very tall closet. I actually fit into it.

Sink! I highly approve.

Still ugly.

To add insult to injury, my Jack Sparrow socks finally gave up the ghost.

Sorry about the late update, but I got in, stayed up for four hours setting up the room, and then slept for twelve hours, waking up Sunday (18^th) at 16:00 (4 PM). 

All in all, I like england, I just don’t like the parts of it inside airports. But now it’s time to put away the computer, because I think the typing noises are disturbing my roommate’s sleep.