Woke up this morning and was soo excited to go to Heathrow! I left later than I planned because leaving at 9:30am for a 12:15pm arrival with an hour of travel time seemed kind of ridiculous. But I didn't wait long.
At Lambeth North, ran into Siri, Mariane, and Carina on their way home. I helped them with their luggage down to the platform and we said goodbye there. They were taking the southbound train and I was on the northbound. Mariane said we'll probably see each other around New Year's, and I said yes and my brother too.
The trip to Heathrow was SO LONG! I was so excited to get there that it elongated the trip by about half the time. But I got there and felt kind of weird being the only person without luggage amid a sea of people with luggage. No one stopped me or anything so I continued to arrivals. I was an hour early before the scheduled landing, but there was a Costa nearby, so I got some peppermint tea and a pastry and people watched for a while.
A woman came up to me and said "I didn't know Father Christmas lived in Wisconsin!" She was referring to my obnoxious Santa hat and said that she was born in Wisconsin. I said I grew up there. We swapped city names and weren't familiar with each other's. She was looking for a friend from Kenya who has a layover in Heathrow and she's there to make sure her flight is still going. Then we parted.
Police dogs were in training around the arrivals for a while. There were about three dogs and one trainer. The trainer had a special bag with the scent the dogs had to sniff out and she would place it next to someone's baggage at their permission I gather. When the dog went to sniff around, they would find the substance and freeze in the pose that something is in that bag. Then the trainer would throw a tennis ball and the dog would know they did good. I like that the tennis ball is the dog's reward instead of a treat. They get to play around a bit when they work correctly.
Abby was also at the arrivals section in Heathrow. She found me while I was playing Snake on my phone. Snake is an addicting game. But anyway, she was waiting for her family who were supposed to arrive a few days ago but they were delayed as well. They were supposed to have arrived earlier in the day and Abby went to find them, but she couldn't find them. She wandered and sat with me and we talked and waited together. She was super excited to see her family and I just wanted Ryan to get here. Abby eventually gave up and left to meet her family at the hotel she was staying at.under their name. She'll find them eventually.
Then I stood up and waited with the crowd of people by the arrivals doors for a while. I kept fidgeting and waited and fidgeted and watched the two tiny girls and their frazzled father next to me. Then I moved and fidgeted some more and when I went to pull out my phone to play another game, Ryan came out. Yay! It wasn't a big hugging emotional reunion scene like I thought, but he was finally here and I was happy.
We took the Underground back to my dorm and he was sort of overwhelmed with the different in cultures. At least the Underground. He said there was some drama on the plane because a woman wanted to sit next to her teenaged son but Ryan didn't want to switch his seat and the man next to the woman flat out told her "No" and she got angry that he snapped at her. Drama drama. Ryan, apparently, slept for only an hour on the flight and his knees came all the way up to the seat in front. Not a comfy position for about eight hours.
We dropped off his stuff in my room and I heated up some leftovers for lunch. I showed him around the dorm and we ate and figured out a plan for tonight. We still had to check into Ryanair from Berlin to Stansted so we decided to do that right away. Then we were going to get ready for Paris the next day. I thought we might want to walk around Oxford Circus/Regent Street/Piccadilly Circus for a bit before we head out.
And so we went and used the Underground again. Ryan was overwhelmed by Oxford Circus because it is a giant shopping mall without the "mall" attached to it. But we got to the library, I printed off the boarding passes and the free tour maps (there's a free tour called New Europe and they're awesome). Ryan wasn't too keen on seeing more stuff, and I was feeling the stress of inadequate pre-packing so I was good with foregoing sightseeing with him. But we saw Regent Street anyway to avoid Oxford Circus.
And now we're back in my room. We're packing at the moment.
Thing of note. My computer user for Windows 7 refuses to load. I don't know what the problem is. I attempted to get AVG to do a virus scan but you need the Adminstrater permission to do that and my guest account, which I'm currently using, is not an Administrater. So I'm stuck with a guest account which isn't my real account and I'm worried. It's not like all my files are lost, they're still there. But the fact that I can't get to my account scares the crap out of me. But Ryan says, and I agree, that whatever the problem is, I should deal with a professional about it when we get back to the States. Until then, I'm going to use a guest account which will be annoying but it'll have to do for now. I'm worried about my computer, but I don't think it's going to get any worse. Even so, I'm going to keep it off as long a possible.
Wish us luck at Paris. I'll talk to you later when we get back!
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