I'm not sure I want to write about London as it was not a great time and a low for us both, but honesty prevails and it is a major city on our travels so it deserves a post. We arrived into Luton airport and catching the overpriced train in on a wet day reminded me why we left. The train, the tube and stepping out at Queensway near Hyde Park the hotel booked was much better than expected for a Bayswater establishment. For those not in the know for London, Bayswater can seem a good place on the map, being next to the park and near to Buck Palace, but the streets are lined with the shitty hotels. If you've seen Lampoons, European Vacation, the London hotel run by Mel Smiths character is a typical Bayswater place. Anyway we walked the streets to find something to eat and found a Thai restaurant that looked cheap, well cheap for London. Going into the argument that happened would mean me just putting my version of events across and therefore it would naturally be one of two things, overly generous to myself, or overly self depreciating in a way to compensate the balance. In reality Sarah was feeling ill and tired, and I just tired. Illness when you are with someone 24 hours a day is hard to deal with. Empathy is hard to do constantly without sounding cliche or handing out advice which is both unqualified and unneeded. It also drags the mood for both down. However, illness is illness and its not wanted or enjoyed by the person very much either. The argument over the meal came back to the hotel and Sarah was looking for flights back to the states, and we were temporarily doing the math on how to divvy up the money, as I was not about to stop travelling. As always things said which were pointless and unnecessary and the whole thing spiralled a little out of control. The thought of the morning alarm at 4am was not good as sleep needed to be attained before that point. The claustrophobia of the hotel didn't help, however somehow we pulled it back and managed to sleep to awaken early. Sarah's decision to continue travelling was good news.
The morning following was so hard for Sarah her stomach cramps were still crippling her. We walked through the rain the relatively short distance to Paddington Station to grab the Heathrow Express. Somehow arrival at Heathrow and checking in our bags without a queue the mood improved. For some reason I love airports for all the reasons that Hugh Grant narrates about on the film Love Actually. However, not liking cliche I will say just sitting a looking around at people off to do something exciting. Reading the departures board and seeing places like Dallas, Ontario, Delhi, Auckland and all these people are twitching waiting for their gate to come up to get to these places. I always loved that.
I will tell you what else I love, flying Emirates. I'm so glad I made the executive decision to pay a little extra for Emirates. The leg room, the attentive cabin crew, the entertainment, the flight was over too soon and after Easyjet the luxury was even more obvious.
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