The 'H' in Heathrow Stands for Hell

Changing planes at Heathrow is quite the experience. Especially when you have only had about 1.5 hours of sleep and are all drugged out on Gravol.




The Little Pink Cow and I started our journey at the new Terminal 1. It looks pretty nice.













We had to take a 7 minute shuttle bus ride to our gate, number 522. Our flight left on time, and was rather uneventful.

LPC got tired early on and slept for most of the way. Lucky her.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. Maybe I was too excited, but I just couldn’t drift off. I finally decided, albeit rather late in the flight, to take some Gravol to make me drowsy. It worked and I slept soundly for about an hour until they turned on the cabin lights and started distributing breakfast.

We landed a short time later, and that is when the chaos ensued.

We got off the plane and took a shuttle bus to the terminal (3).

Let me preempt the next part of this post by saying that the Heathrow Airport appears to have been built for maybe a maximum of 100 passengers traversing through it at any one time, not hundreds of thousands. It is not a spacious place. The hallways are tight, the doors are not wide, and the ceilings are low.

I followed the signs for passengers with connecting flights and lined up in one of the two lines. I had no idea at the time that there was actually a difference between the two lines, but there was. Thankfully I ended up in the correct queue. There were hoards of people in two lines trying to fit through a regular sized door. Once through the door, it was down another narrow hall, down a single flight of stairs (not escalator, but stairs—even though there was an escalator that went to the exact same place), and then on another shuttle bus to get to terminal 1.

Once into terminal 1, we were permitted to go up the escalator a few people at a time, much the way a bouncer lets people into a club. At the top of the escalator there were rows and rows of people waiting to go through security, and this sign:

Apparently they have some irate people in London.

I ambled through the lines in an eye-burning daze since it was about 3:30am for me at this point. Once through security, I made it downstairs to the transit lounge to wait for my next flight. I wandered around, but was too damn tired to appreciate anything. Since they don’t post connecting gate information until 30 minutes before the flight, I stayed in the seating area and fell asleep. I probably slept for about 45 minutes. When I woke up, I got something to eat and then saw that they had posted my gate info, which I had difficulty reading since I was so tired. It took me a few minutes to figure out that it was not 1-B, or 1-8, but 18.

Then it was on to another plane and off to Venice. I slept the entire way, but managed to wake up enough to catch these landing shots.

Once off the plane, I got my luggage (it was all there this time. YAY!!) and met the Air Service guy who had my name on a sign. We waited for a few other people before leaving. On the way into Padova, we passed by an IKEA! Score!

I got dropped off at the school, and then the director took me to my apartment where I have been unpacking my stuff. Even though I would love a little nap, I am going to force myself to stay awake until it is bedtime so that I won’t be totally jet lagged.

In conclusion, if I never have to change planes at Heathrow again, it will be too soon.