Day 11

We’re home! Our morning was pretty uneventful and consisted of the normal checking to make sure we packed everything and a short breakfast in the concierge lounge. We also made note of a family we seem to see every time we’re in the lounge (they are also on our flight and Lora noticed them in the restaurant we ate in at the airport and we saw them at the baggage claim area in Atlanta).

We headed off towards the Hyde Park Corner Tube station – just a 5 minute walk – in typical fashion I remarked how it didn’t feel cold outside today but of course within 2 minutes my tune had changed. We had looked up the route online and the Picadilly line would take us all the way to Heathrow Terminal 4 – however when we arrived we were presented with differing information. We checked the map printed on the wall and it only mentioned a bus service to Terminal 4 which contradicted what we’d read earlier online. However, the LED sign nearby listed 3 trains that were arriving in the next few minutes – 2 of them listed Heathrow and 1 of them made mention of Terminal 4. The first train came and it was luckily not the one that listed Terminal 4 as one of its end destinations – it was packed solid and there was no way our luggage would have been able to make the ride with us. The next train that was going to the terminal our plane was scheduled to leave from however was thankfully empty. On the way to Heathrow I managed to open one of the books I had bought and I’m very glad I did - Freakonomics. Not to say I have a big selection of choices to pick from but it definitely goes on my recommended reading list – especially for parents or parents-to-be. The book is filled with conclusions brought on by a lot of very thoughtful questions that others never asked and plenty of data to back them up. I wish I’d have read this sooner as it covers a topic that I have had an ongoing argument with my mother for a few months now – that we’d last decided we would finish the argument when we saw each other at Christmas but both forgot about. The topic at hand was the effect that parents do or do not have on their offspring – mainly surrounding the idea that other forces such as the media or peers play an equal/smaller/larger role. This is by no means a new topic but much as one can twist facts into supporting their opinion I feel that Freakonomics presents some strong evidence to support my viewpoint regarding the effect of parents to a child. I have probably told Lora 10x since I started reading the book that she has to read it when I’m done – which I finished it shortly into our flight – it’s a quick read.

The plane ride was pretty uneventful other than the very beginning which has a prelude that I’ll go into shortly and a brief few minutes when we experienced some intense turbulence and of course the nearby large group of teenagers made a large racket. We arrived at the airport roughly 2 hours before our departure and made our way to the Train ticket counter to turn in our Oyster cards for a refund of our deposit (the machine where the cards are spit out of says 3 Pound deposit on it and we made a note when we got them that we’d be back to get our deposit somehow). There wasn’t a line and we walked right up the guy asked us if we were sure we wanted to go forward with the process because it would take some time – we had plenty to spare so we saddled up for a 15 minute ride – they really don’t want to take these things back it seems. He proceeded to strike up a conversation with me while Lora chatted with another Tube employee nearby that told her what a jerk the guy I was talking to was. He asked me why was it that only Americans seemed to ever ask for their deposit back and I tried to unsuccessfully explain to him that if the process was a huge hassle they should remove the word “deposit” from the card dispensing machines – in America when I give a deposit I will be back for it at some point – I guess in London that’s not true though. He filled out a bunch of paperwork and typed some things onto his computer while changing the topic of conversation to American TV – clearly I was the chosen representative from the country. He wanted to know why TV shows quit showing new episodes around the end of the year and didn’t start showing new ones again until well into the New Year – I tried to think of something ridiculous to respond with because unfortunately the answer to this question wasn’t in the American handbook. This guy sucked but I had to put up with him because he had our deposits! The story does have a good ending though – we ended up getting back just over 10 Pounds as opposed to just over 6 as we had anticipated – who are these idiots leaving 6+ Pounds on the table when they leave London.

We then left and headed to get our tickets and make our way to a restaurant inside the terminal. There were only 2 choices and 1 of them was in the opposite direction of our gate – Garfunkels won. If you need to do a study on inefficiency (one of my largest pet peeves) then look no further. Garfunkels failed to excel in a single category that a restaurant has a chance to with the first one being failure to seat people. This problem was actually caused by a few other things going on in the restaurant – there was nobody bussing tables so they just sat dirty for many minutes after guests left – as well as a few people not eating or drinking but rather just sitting and reading (one older gentleman as he was leaving made it a point to tell one girl that she was taking up valuable eating space with her novel and she told him to shove off quite nastily – she was still reading when we left). Eventually however we were able to get a table and looked over the menu and after the waiter finally made his way to our table we even were able to order our selections. Just as the food was coming our plane began to board – we could view it from where we were sitting. At least the food wasn’t spectacular so we didn’t feel too bad leaving a half-eaten chicken sandwich and some nachos. Had we been able to sit down in a reasonable amount of time then we would have had plenty of time to finish our meals. We arrived at the restaurant over an hour before our plane was scheduled to board with only 1 group in front of us – a family of 4.

We quickly ran to the restroom and then boarded and then made our way to our seats in the back right of the plane. We were on an actual Delta flight this time as opposed to the much nicer Air France operated flight on the way over to Europe. They only give out 1 free alcoholic drink unlike the endless supply with AF. The meal was nothing to write home about – the Chicken Marinara was left mostly uneaten by both of us – the only thing that was nibbled on were the crackers and cheese and bread. I’m pretty sure Lora’s happy her sinuses are backed up and can’t taste as well as normal. The plan is to stop at Zaxby’s on the way home – mmmmm kickin’ chicken.

We finally landed 30 minutes early but of course our gate was occupied and the plane wasn’t going to be turned for another 20 or so minutes. I even broke out the laptop and got online to check a few things while waiting and after a short wait we made it off the plane. We headed towards customs and once we got there the line was ridiculously long. While waiting to go through customs we got to watch a girl freak out because she had lost her passport (she was with a large group of students from somewhere in Alabama) – she did eventually get through customs about 20 minutes later although I’m not sure how but I’m assuming it was due to finding her passport in her purse. We gathered our bags and headed home. It sure is nice to be home!