I left Ithaca Monday night, April 9, 2018, connected through Newark,
and then on to London Heathrow airport, arriving around 10am Tuesday
morning. They parked the plane out in the middle of nowhere. We
used air-stairs to exit the plane and then they put us on a bus to
get to the terminal. Passport control, customers, baggage claim,
and all that went very smoothly.
After some initial orientation (and disorientation) in the
airport trying to figure out how to take out some money (or find a
machine that would accept my card and not gouge me), I was on my way.
I took the "Underground" (subway) into London (King's Cross
Station). I must admit that whenever I hear or read the word Underground,
the refrain from the
theme song
to the movie Labyrinth starts going through my mind. Anyway,
after that I exited the Underground station to get to King's Cross Rail
Station (just next to it), figured out how to get the next train to Cambridge,
and in doing so, missed it, and then purchased a ticket to what was
the next next train to Cambridge. Oh, and speaking of Labyrinth
and other fantasy stuff, King's Cross station is the one in Harry Potter
and there was a wall with a sign for Platform 9¾ and people
around it taking pictures (not sure if it was free or not).
I will say that while train travel is convenient and effective and all
that stuff, it really is little more than a subway train with seats
facing front and back, instead of sideways, with longer gaps between
stations. I still feel that trains should have more of an "Orient
Express" feel to them, or at least what I imagine it should be from
books and movies and TV shows. Except the killing. That was on one
of my first train trips, a 3 hour trip from
Portland to Seattle back in 2010. So in retrospect, I guess
I'm OK with boring trips with little early 20th century
wooden charm, if the train doesn't kill anyone.
Part 9: Backyard
Blacksmith Workshop Part 10: Bagby Airfield Part 11: Byland Abbey Part 12: National Railway
Museum Part 13: Cambridge (Part
2) Part 14: Cambridge
Botanical Gardens Part 15: The Departure
000-DSC_0784: A view from the flight from Ithaca as we were over the clouds.
001-DSC_0786: I arrived in Terminal 2 in Heathrow. It's the Queen's Terminal,
but she's quite gracious and allows foreigners to us it.
001-heathrow_art_panorama: There was a funky artsy sculpture outside of
the terminal (I think it was Terminals 2 and 3). It looked cool, but I
also hadn't slept all night. Because of its diagonal shape, I didn't want
to shoot an extra 6 pictures on things I wasn't interested in just to
keep it rectangular.
002-DSC_0789: Information about Slipstream, the name of the sculpture.
003-DSC_0795: Hey, I'm in London, just after exiting the Underground station
(♫ Gotta, gotta get me out of here! ♫).
003a-kings_cross_Panorama: Multi-picture of um...I guess it's the other
train station next to King's Cross: St. Pancras Station. Instead of
Bowie singing a song, I simply think of a pancreas whenever I see that
name. Ew.
004-DSC_0796: The ceiling inside King's Cross rail station.
005-DSC_0797: I liked the geometric pattern and purple lighting.
006-DSC_0798: It reminded me of the ceiling in part of the British Museum
(from a previous trip).
007-DSC_0799: The Big Board showing the next and next next trains.
008-DSC_0801: Hey, I'm arriving in Cambridge!
Bottom:
Part 9: Backyard
Blacksmith Workshop Part 10: Bagby Airfield Part 11: Byland Abbey Part 12: National Railway
Museum Part 13: Cambridge (Part
2) Part 14: Cambridge
Botanical Gardens Part 15: The Departure