Saturday October 15th, 2011

So although I write this from Istanbul at just a hair past midnight on Sunday October 16th, hardly within my UWTL parameters, I felt as if it is was only appropriate considering I haven't really gone to "sleep" since Friday night.

I've slept about 3 hours since waking up yesterday morning, here's what happened...

Tilted Paul / Millennium

With a 6:55 AM flight out of London this morning, I thought it was best to bypass a pricey hotel room that i'd only sleep in for 3-4 hours tops, plop my bags down at a friend's place and just try to make it through the night.  Sure it isn't ideal, but 4 hours of sleep on a plane after a 22 hour day is better than no sleep at all.

Here's where things went wrong.  When you're trying to stay up all night, best to conserve energy.  Running yourself and friends ragged around London all day, and eating the biggest portion of fish and chips you've ever seen in your life, is probably not the best way to accomplish such a thing.

That being said, save for 20 minute naps here and there in the late night and early mornings, I couldn't get any rest for the life of me, probably as a result of a tasty yet intensely sugary alcoholic beverage.  Ginger beer was involved.

Then after hours of trying to get a mini night's sleep with nothing but a pillow and a whitewall, it was time to get an early start on my airport mission around 3:45.

I was ready and raring to go as I boarded the bus to Paddington station, amidst the hustle and bustle of post 4am London (god why can't LA even have nights like that every other year, let alone every weekend).  The bus was a coup (is that how you spell coup, as in victory?) because I had thought for sure I'd have to take a costly cab, which is why my late night/ early morning was spent very frugally.  I arrive at Paddington a tad before 4:30, plenty of time to catch the earliest Heathrow express at 5:10 in the morning.  When I arrived there was no such train today as well as next Sunday, because of track maintainence.  The first train was scheded for about 9:30, only 155 minutes after my flight took off.

Where is Everybody?

Luckily, though again, with a price (oh London, how I adore thee), there was a nice Algerian cabby ready and raring to speed me to the airport for over twice as much as I had in my pocket.

An ATM and conversation about football, rugby and favorite actors later, I found myself at the airport well ahead of my expected, express train arrival time.  Security was nothing save for a bag rescan, then a delicious pair of Pret a Manger purchases later, I was rid of all my pounds (UK currency, not weight) and boy did I lose a lot of them over two nights.

That's all my brain and tired body can muster for now.  Pumped for a full day tomorrow, surely will have much to report and might just even go back in time to share some additional London misadventures with you.

Sleep tight.