27 March 1998           9:57AM

I woke up at 7:30, crawled out of bed (yawn!), showered, packed the last of my clothes away (man, those suitcases were heavy!), and walked to the Air Bus stop (to catch the 8:50am bus), which is a direct connection to Heathrow, and my flight home.  It cost £6, quite a bargain, really, considering it saved me trying to navigate two suitcases through the Tube system (the second suitcase was just a duffel bag packed full of all the stuff I'd bought everybody, but that turned out to be quite a bit of stuff!).

I just made it to the bus stop as the Air Bus arrived; my timing for my entire time in London had been pretty darned good, and this last day was no exception.  I got to Heathrow about 9:30, which was plenty early for my flight (it left at 1:30pm). 

The terminal was absolutely packed!  There were long, winding queues at every British Airways counter; fortunately, they moved fairly quickly so standing in line wasn't too hideous.  I finally got to the counter at 10:20, and got my seat assignment (aisle), and the guy behind the counter, a man named Daniel, was very, very friendly and very, very helpful.  He asked me how I'd enjoyed London, and seemed sincerely pleased that I answered him so positively.  "Please come back soon!" he said, and I'll definitely take him up on that offer!

He checked in my bags, so all I had was my carry-on bag (just a shoulder bag, for my notebook and camera) and a poster tube, full of all my rolled posters, because I didn't trust them to survive going through with my baggage.

Then I went through the metal detector, into the departing passenger area, and let me tell you, security is very, very tight at Heathrow -- my belt buckle set off their metal detector, and they checked me out from head to toe to make sure I wasn't carrying any deadly weapons.  The metal in the rivets in the pockets of my jeans was enough to trip their detectors.  They are very serious about this stuff!

But it made me feel safer, so I didn't mind their thoroughness.  And they were very, very polite, even as they're prepared to shoot you if you make any sudden moves.  My kind of people.

I spent the next couple of hours aimlessly wandering around the departure area, and bought a Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar to munch now, plus other assorted, last minute goodies for later.

Then they finally called to announce the boarding of my flight, and I headed for the gate -- only to realize that I'd left my poster tube somewhere.  @#$@#!

I thought quickly, and I was sure I'd left it at the far end of the terminal, at Hamley's Toy Store (I'd stopped there to pick up a few last minute items).  I ran all the way back across the terminal, both because I didn't want to miss my flight, and because there were signs all over the place warning, DO NOT LEAVE PACKAGES UNATTENDED! (because of possible bomb threats), and I didn't want a bunch of security people to blast my posters into confetti.

Sure enough, I'd left my posters at Hamley's -- and the women behind the counter had, fortunately for me, decided to open the tube and see what was inside before calling security to come get it.  I thanked them, apologized for causing them stress (they had been genuinely concerned to find this poster tube with the words HOLD TIGHT! – London Transport lingo –   emblazoned on it), and stuffed the posters back in the tube (they'd unrolled a few, just to check, and couldn't get them back in because I'd rolled them all together so tightly).

They were announcing "last call" for my flight by the time I made it back across the terminal, but I made it, albeit in a rather breathless sort of way.  I wondered why it was Last Call when our flight didn't leave for another 40 minutes, but I soon found out the reason: Our plane was not docked at any of the attached terminals; we had to take a shuttle bus across the tarmac, and board our flight up a mobile stair-crane.  It was pretty cool, actually. 

So I got on board, found my aisle seat, and, as luck would have it, our flight wasn't completely full so the seat next to me was empty; at least I could move my arms around a little, even if my feet were still a bit scrunched.

But I didn't mind.  My trip had been a great one, and my flight back home, although bumpy in parts, was safe and on time.  Who could ask for more.

And how will I remember this time I spent in London?  Have I seen everything I wanted to?  Will I come again, next year?  Well ... I read London Blues on the way back, and I would leave you with a quote from it, but the subject matter is a little "R" rated so maybe I'll just sign off with a few words from Donald Goddard:

        If he has stayed the course, the determined sightseer may now be in danger of thinking he knows London.  Probably he has seen as much of her as most Londoners, who tend to commute between home and office and end up seeing nothing, but in fact he has done little more than be formally introduced.  And as in any courtship, the main business begins once the preliminaries are over....

        He has yet to take a stroll through the country from Westminster to Notting Hill ... He has still to wander through the Inns of Court, from the Embankment to Holborn ... He hasn't caught her facing the wrong way on a narrow boat voyage on the Regent's Canal.

        So far, he knows nothing of the crumbling East End and its amiable hustlers.  He has yet to see the trendy slums of Islington and Camden Town, all broken out in bright paint and carriage lamps as the middle class reclaims them.  The gentility of St. John's Wood, the smugness of Hampstead and Highgate, the preciosity of Primrose Hill are still a mystery to him.

        But [even if he sees these places], like all of London's suitors, he will find that she still eludes him.  There's simply no knowing her in any final sense; she confounds every judgment with endless exceptions to the rule.  Diverse as the people who built her, she is the aggregate of their experience; all her suitors can do in the end is take her as she comes -- and be thankful.    

Until Next Time ...