I slept in late and, after eating breakfast, I walked to the post office to mail some letters. It was closed. Apparently it has been closed all week for construction…dang. Luckily it was a gorgeous, sunny morning and I enjoyed having a walk through town. After a quick lunch (a veggie burger and tomato on baguette), my host father drove me to the Biarritz airport. It’s about 30 minutes away and he was headed that direction to visit a friend, so it wasn’t much out of his way. I really appreciated it though—it was so much easier and faster than taking a bus and a train!
I flew on Ryanair to London, which meant my bag could only weigh 10kg… Just to be certain, I put on both my sweaters and my rain jacket before going up to the counter. It was 8.8kg! Success!
I arrived at the London airport at 4:15pm and customs took 1 1/4 hours. The line was extremely long (I got in just after a big flight from Myanmar) and it moved really slowly!! While waiting, I spotted a guy wearing Vibram 5 Fingers (the shoes with toes!) who was being questioned by all those around him who had apparently never seen them before. That made me smile, as I had mine in my backpack.
When I finally reached the desk, the customs official asked for the address of where I’d be staying in the UK… I told him I was staying with a friend who was picking me up, so I didn’t know the address. He was not impressed. I got a long lecture about traveling without the address of where I was going—just in case things didn’t work out. Haha, given my unfortunate arrival in Tyrosse, you’d think I would have learned! Eventually he let me through and I went off in search of the bus.
Once I’d located where I would need to catch my bus for Glasgow, I went back inside the airport to wait for 2 1/2 hours. Since I would be on the bus overnight, I decided to get some dinner in one of the cafés and enjoyed a panini and ice water. I sat at the table for about an hour, reading and nibbling on some of my Aunt Barbara’s Halloween cookies, which I’d brought with me!
Photo: My dinner!! :)
I ended up catching a slightly earlier bus from the airport, which meant my layover in downtown London was about 1 1/2 hours. I just found a seat in the corner and alternately read and people-watched.
When the bus finally arrived, they announced that there were too many passengers, so they’d send a second bus that would go directly to Glasgow (without any stops). I waited for that one and I managed to nab a window seat and no one sat next to me!! I was thrilled about getting to sleep—until we stopped 10 minutes later to pick up some more passengers (so much for no stops!!). They announced that all the seats would be full, so I knew I would have someone sitting next to me. But then a father and son asked if I could move, so they could sit together. I said I would, but by then the only vacant seat was in the very back (next to the toilet) and (since it was the very back) there were five seats across instead of just two, which meant I was sandwiched between two people and had no place to lean. On one side there was a lady who smelled of smoke and was talking inanely on her phone and on the other side there was a lady with a 4-yr-old son. Bummer. And, of course, the toilets stopped working really quickly and the odor was less than pleasant. I managed to doze off a few times (once the lady stopped talking on her phone), but couldn’t read because the back of the bus doesn’t have reading lights…
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