Life Across the Pond/God save the Queen/Her Majesty's Service

Good news- I made it to London. Bad news- I didn't sleep on the airplane. To put this in perspective I woke up at 10 am on Wednesday, left the states at 9:40 pm and am now in the London airport hanging out at 6 am EST. More or less, I've been awake 20 hours and can't really get to a bed until 12 EST, running me to 26 hours awake time, minus whatever I can catch on the second flight. They've also moved me to a middle seat on the second flight, which is just peachy. You can't sleep in aisle seats, because people are always bumping you, and inevitably if you have middle you got two larger individuals flowing over into your already tiny space. At least I'll be back in Rome, so I guess I can't complain too much. But wait, there's more! So I flew into London because it had the best rate connection flight wise. My first advice for connecting in London, is don't do it. If you have to, give yourself at least 2 hours. Regardless of where you land, it's a mile walk (ok not literally, but it feels like a long walk) to leave your gate and reach the shuttle, which you will inevitably have to take. It's usually a 5 or 10 minute wait for the shuttle, followed by a 10-15 minute shuttle ride (it's just enough time to make you glad you're not driving and appreciate the fact we drive on the right hand side) at which point you get to your departing terminal. It's probably a 5-10 minute walk to security and customs, which is another 10 minutes. Today I flew through security and customs, which was nice, but last time it took a while. I'm now in terminal 5, which is divided into section A (where I am) section B (a 15 minute tram ride away) and section C (a 20 minute tram ride away). Heathrow is a hike.

Now some social observations, because Heathrow is full of them. I live in a fairly white state. I can count on two hands the number of non Caucasian students at my high school, so when I get out of the woods I notice these things. Now you can say that I would be used to it having lived in Rome, but Rome tends to fit the mold pretty similarly. There's more people of color, but for the most part the tourists are from the USA or north of Rome Europe. In Heathrow, this is not the case. I'll go so far to say that 2/3 people are white here, but that's still a huge difference from whiter than white Maine. The other group I'm noticing are Muslims, made noticeable by women wearing the hijab. It gives you a sense that Islam is still spreading. I have lots of opinions on Islam, but you probably don't want to hear them all. Here are some anyways. Not all Muslims are terrorists, and there was actually a time where they were responsible for keeping the culture of the world (particularly Europe) alive. However, recently they've been earning a pretty bad reputation and have become hated by lots of people all over the world. I have no issue with other religions (after we except the fact that the one true God is the Catholic God) but I draw issue when your religious meetings include killing sessions and you reduce women to such a subservient role. I get that feminists have issues with the way that the Catholic church deals with women (one issue is the lack of women being allowed to serve in the clergy) but in some branches of Islam, women aren't allowed to work, or to have any part of their skin seen by anyone other than their husbands. One last observation. There was an elderly lady, presumably from India (she spoke no English) with her similarly elderly husband ahead of me leaving security, headed for the escalator. When they got to the escalator, the woman freaked out, wouldn't step on it and showed genuine fear at approaching it, much the way someone afraid of heights would balk when approaching the line for a roller coaster. It occurred to me that I was witnessing someone's first encounter with an escalator. Her husband begged with her, and when he couldn't drag her, got on and rode it up to show her it was safe. She still wouldn't budge, until a 50ish year old gentleman came by linked arms with her and together rode it to the top. These are all just reminders that I'm not in Kansas anymore. I have 45 minutes till boarding for the flight to Rome, so I'm going to go see if I can't find some fish and chips to chow down on while also avoiding any more than a 5 minute commute. Wish me luck, and I'll keep this updated with my travel moves.