Hello from Heathrow
Friday, January 19, 2007 at 6:27AM Well, this is an ... er, I'd say "auspicious" were I superstitious in any way, but I'm not ... but yeah, er an auspicious start to my journey to India.
My flight out of JFK was delayed by about 1.5 hours, and the connecting flight out of Heathrow, by about 3.5 hours. Blame was cast on the storms that have swept through the UK leaving a trail of death & destruction in its wake ... but I can safely say they seem to have all blown over. There was a bit of turbulence on the way in this morning, but the sky outside seems to be quite azure, with a few spotty white clouds hanging about.
You know, American terminals are boring almost to the point of tears, when compared to Heathrow ... terminal 7 at JFK had all of 3 stores including an Altitunes, a duty-free store, and one other unimaginative store. Heathrow's Terminal floor is a bloody mall by comparison ... Harrods, Pink, Borders, Swarovski, a ton of fashion boutiques, restaurants (horribly overpriced BTW - a breakfast and tea cost me £7+). Of course, the thing preventing me from buying anything is the insane exchange rate being offered by the Shylockian moneychangers ... including commission (£3), $40 netted me just under £16! I might buy something on the way back ... maybe some wine or other booze. The last time I tried to bring wine into India, I was deemed by customs to be over the allowable limit and was stiffed with a Rs. 3000 fine.
I did spend some time over aforesaid breakfast reading the Guardian (gotta love left-of-center liberal papers), and catching up with the latest Big Brother updates. Apparently both Shetty & Goody are up for a vote to be thrown out this Friday, with obvious favorite being Goody. And there was a lot of hand-wringing over the death of British civility. One commentator, who seemed to have a bit more sense than others, derided Big Brother-esque reality TV for being the real culprit.
10-hour trip to Chennai coming up. I swear, I'm going to sleep through Saturday at this rate!
Reader Comments (5)
and ur breakfast is obviosuly gonna cost £7+ - its u we r talking abt swthrt...its the quantity, not quality;)
Axe, prefer Indian outlets to British so that your dollars are put to better use, unless you have not paid your annual taxes to the Queen and are feeling guilty.