smofbabe

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Golders Green, London, trying desperately to stay awake until it's officially nightfall. (Not having to pretend to follow local time in Bangalore was oddly liberating!)

The Bangalore airport has separate security lines for men and women because everyone gets wanded. OTOH, they don't care about your shoes and although they wanted me to take my laptop out of the bigger bag, they grabbed it from me without caring that it was still in its carry case! In Frankfurt, you have to go through extra screening even as a transfer passenger and right before you get to the machines there's a sign saying that the extra measures are because of US security requirements. I was surprised they didn't just add "So don't blame us"

No sleep on the plane again, combination of never sleeping on planes and a guy behind me loudly clearing his throat or coughing every so often. If looks could kill, he'd be dead from the people in the seats around him.

Seat pitch on Lufthansa was once again insane, even more so because there was more legroom on the short hop from Frankfurt to London.

The car service was not waiting for me in Heathrow. When I called, he said it was because I'd given him the wrong flight number. No, I hadn't: I'd given him United's codeshare number for a Lufthansa flight. Heathrow claimed there was no such United flight. Gee, thanks, Heathrow: there's only one flight from Frankfurt at the stated arrival time and wouldn't you think they'd know about codeshare numbers? I debated whether to just take a taxi but given that it was a good rate and that my brain is pudding right now, I decided it was easier just to wait. Had a coffee and bought some antiseptic cream and plasters from the airport Boots. (I neglected to mention in my catalog of woes earlier that due to an uneven jetway in Frankfurt on my way to Bangalore, my backpack/wheelie's wheel gouged about a 1" hole in my heel. The hotel in Bangalore luckily provided antiseptic-coated band-aids as part of their standard kit but not here.)

The driver who showed up was a grizzled 60-something Israeli, about as far from the overly friendly young staff in Bangalore as it's possible to get!

My hotel is about what you'd expect for 30 quid a night: the room can barely hold the bed, my suitcase, and me. The only place to put my suitcase blocks the closet and I've had to pile things on top of the TV.