London

October 17 Mon

Our overnight flight brought us to London on the morning of October 17th. We were met at the plane by a wheelchair, pushed by a man who was obviously of non-native ethnicity. He expedited our entry into England and patiently waited while we claimed and stacked our luggage and changed some of our money into British Pounds. We had made it this far with all our stuff and hoped to just identify our luggage and leave it at the airport to wait for our connecting flight. But alas, here is where my lack of experience caught up with me. Because we would be flying out of London more than 24 hours later, we couldn't leave our bags. We had to take them to our hotel and come back with them when we were ready to fly again. Our wheelchair attendant then took us to the spot where the shuttle to our hotel would stop to collect us, and left us. The shuttle driver who stopped for us was very muscular and wrestled most of our bags into the shuttle. We rode the shuttle all the way around the perimeter of Heathrow Airport on the opposite side of the road from the one I had been driving on in America for so long that it looked odd to me again, even though it shouldn't have, considering how much driving I had done in Australia so many months ago. We and our bags were dropped off at the curb in front of the Hotel Ibis, the accommodations I had arranged for while we were still in Atlanta. Razelle watched over them while I went looking for a cart. A lot of business-types were checking in at the same time, so carts were scarce.

We checked in for two nights, even though we planned to only be there one night.

It cost us less to pay for the extra unused night than it would have cost to keep our room extra hours past check-out time after the first night (for which they would have charged us an hourly rate). Our flight home – the last flight of this epic journey – is scheduled to leave late tomorrow. The elevator was in great demand, so Razelle sat in the lobby with some of our bags while I herded the others into the elevator. I found our room, opened it and saw that it was a bit cramped for space. The window was partly open and I struggled with its hard-to-work mechanism until I managed to get it closed against the chill London air. The view from our room was of planes coming in for a landing on Heathrow's tarmac against a backdrop of London's leaden sky.

Razelle come up with me as I brought up the last of our bags, and switched on our television. Most of our channels were an array of more BBC channels than I even knew existed. There was also Sky News. We were immediately transfixed by the latest news that greeted our eyes and ears. After so many years without knowing the true fate of Gilad Shalit, here he was: the subject of breaking news on Sky and BBC broadcasts. Gilad Shalit had been captured in June 2006 by tunneling Palestinians in a cross-border raid from Gaza and then hauled back through the same tunnel and hidden beyond rescue.  In the years that have ensued, there have been public campaigns, secret negotiations, bumper stickers and websites dedicated to securing his release, not to mention the shedding of blood and loss of property on both their side and ours. There have been national debates and hand-wringing over what price is too high (or whether there is such a thing a too high a price) to pay to have this bespectacled slip of a boy back with his family. And of all things, our last full day abroad, here we see that Gilad Shalit will make it home ahead of us, in exchange for over a thousand prisoners that Israel will be releasing (half now and half later). We had to be in Europe to be able to see this kind of intense news coverage. It reminded us of how little exposure we had had of Israeli news during our sojourn in America, and served to prepare us for re-immersion into the intense life we lead in the Israel that we are about to return to.

Here we are in London, with a day and a half intentionally budgeted into our trip by me for a window of opportunity to see something of London's landmarks and instead we are watching television in our cramped hotel room. Razelle had finally reached the point where leaving the cozy confines of our hotel room had no more appeal than the sunless London sky outside our window. We did venture forth to see what fare the dining hall had to offer for the mid-day meal. I ordered fish and chips. How could I not order this while here in London? The prices were a bit much, but the food was good. Our waitress was another non-native individual. And I thought I had an accent (American English, don't cha know)! Our waitress's accent was exotic enough that I didn't understand her at first (not veddy Brittish at all!).

Razelle and I went back to the room, but I was getting more restless as the hours passed. I had only been to London once before, and that was for a mere 4 hours on my way to immigrating to Israel in 1978. As it so happens, that was on the 19th of October of that year. The weather then was precisely identical to the weather outside on this October day. Razelle says that that's not so remarkable; it's like this in London most every day. How dreary! She has spent time here in the past and must know from whence she speaks.

Because of the cost of lunch, I decided that I would at least venture forth on foot a reasonable distance from the hotel and see what I could find foraging for food at a grocery store or even at an omnipresent McDonald's (they're everywhere, there everywhere) and secure some food at less expense.

The hotel lobby has a giant interactive map on a central pillar. You can select a category and it will show you where establishments of that type are found. I waited very patiently while an oriental guest of the hotel played and played and played with the options. I couldn't believe how inconsiderate he seemed. I had nothing more urgent to do than study this person, so I did. Eventually he became aware of someone staring at the back of his head and with great embarrassment he left the map to me.

Sure enough, there was a McDonald's restaurant within walking distance. I set out to explore the neighborhood. Something about the opposite flow of traffic and the overcast sky got me confused about which way I was going. After walking a block I returned to the hotel and the map to try again to set out in my intended direction. I followed the road that separated the Hotel Ibis and Heathrow Airport (Bath Road) for about a kilometer. As I walked a saw plane after plane come down out of the pewter-grey sky a few minutes apart and noted their tail insignias. Most of the air traffic I saw coming into Heathrow had British Airways markings. The constant wind had a chilling bite to it that made my eyes water. The homes built almost at the sidewalk's edge along Bath Road had planters with forlorn-looking flowering plants in them that weren't too cheery this time of year. I crossed a slow-flowing creek and saw a pair of mallards turn tail and hide behind the foliage at the water's edge. A small plaque on the short stone bridge that conveyed traffic across this creek announced that it had been erected in 1776. That date made me pause in my tracks and marvel at its coincidental significance to me. I came to a small commercial center that had small ethnic food stores and restaurants, and a gathering of kids in school uniforms that were loitering in knots before heading for home after school, which apparently had just been let out. They all looked non-native to me as well (I couldn't guess whether from the Indian sub-continent or from the West Indies, or perhaps from the Middle East). I entered a small grocery store, called Tesco express. I studied the items they had for sale and decided to get some ready-made tuna-and-cucumber sandwiches for Razelle and some chocolate milkshakes and strawberry milkshakes for both of us. I knew that the McDonald's was somewhere farther ahead but I gave up trying to reach it now that I had food. I did however make a mental note of the Kebab Centre and the Domino's Pizza I had passed. I paid for my purchase with the paper Pound Notes I had gotten at the airport and was rewarded with heavy coins in change. Now I know why Australian money is so heavy and clunky. They have the same "shrapnel" there as Mother England has here.

Razelle had no enthusiasm or interest in salvaging what was left of the day to see something – anything – of London, so we stayed put while Razelle ate her sandwiches and I drank the milkshakes.