Wednesday Apr. 12th, 2000 Onto The Ibis
10C/49F Rainy
Kel
As we'd have to be up and moving agonizingly early to catch our flight if we were to stay in
London, we decided to get a room close to the airport and sleep in until 0700. Who knows if we'd
have any sleep for the next many hours getting home.
Packed up, checked out and left our bags at the desk. Walked past Paddington
looking for a bookshop, bureau de change, and stamps. We ended up taking the tube to Piccadilly
and spending an hour or more cruising 5 floors of books. Len found some books on the Underground
(to feed his new obsession of building a 3D model with lights on a street map to show where the
trains _really_ run). I was trying to find a book that they'd talked about on the Big Brekkie. I
hadn't been able to jot down the title, and thought it was "Home Truths" or something similar, but
was apparently mistaken. It wasn't the sort of book I felt good about asking for with the obvious
American accent either...
It was still raining quite well so we popped across the street and hit Starbucks for Lattes,
Mochas and Sticky Buns. Num num!
It was getting close to time when we could check into the Heathrow Ibis so we started heading back
to the Oxford Hotel to pick up the bags. The manager there was super nice and let us freshen up a
bit before we started dragging our things to the Heathrow Express.
A quick trip to Heathrow and we found a "Hotel Hoppa" bus to the Ibis. Our room was on the 5th
floor and we have a good view of Terminal 3 and the runway, just across the street. The have 2
sets of double paned windows so you can hardly hear a thing when the windows are closed. When
they're open the room positively rattles.
Worked on trying to get everything packed for the long trip, gave up and read for a bit. Went down
for dinner, the selection was thin. The Buffet, or a steak. Both were a bit pricey for and while
quite edible, not going to get great marks compared to most of our other meals this trip.
After dinner it could be put off no longer. It was time to do the nasty and repack EVERYTHING
safely and into few enough bags we could carry it. (We did have those 20 shot glasses and all
that whiskey to worry about.) My carry on became a check-thru, mostly full of dirty laundry
wrapped around all the fragile things. Len took all of the larger items, and as everything was so
overcrowded in there we had no worries about loadshift.
I used the grey tote as a carry on, and Len the new bag we'd bought in London. We only brought
our water bottles, nicotine gum, a book each, my CD's and CD player, and a few
extra batteries.
With everything (but our clothes for tomorrow) safely stowed away we slept our last night in
England.
