Return Trip to Heathrow Terminal 5

My son, wife and I were ready to leave London on Friday.  We needed to get to Heathrow Airport.  Since we didn't rent a self-drive car we had several choices.  Overground/Underground, taxi or private hire minicab.  Seeing how we had problems on the Overground/Underground we took that choice out of the mix.  My daughter stepped in and hired a private minicab to take us to Heathrow.  

Source:StormCab

A Mercedes Vito Taxi Bus arrived at the apartment house door.  The driver helped us get our bags loaded into the cargo area of the bus.  My son sat in the front beside the driver.  My wife and I had the back with its three seats facing three seats.  There was plenty of room even with my wife's leg up on the seat for a few more people.  We started on our way through London.  I guess there are no bypass roads, for it seemed we went through the most congested areas of the city.

I haven't spoken much of the traffic in London, mostly because I didn't drive in it.  However, let me say I never want to drive in it, either.  What a mess.  The first thing I noticed the day we visited Harrod's is that there are no parking lanes along the city streets.  That may not seem like a big deal.  Philadelphia has no parking along the Market Street, but most other Philadelphia streets have parking on at least one side.  Without a buffer of parked cars along the street means there are huge, double decker buses traveling along the curb at a good clip.  If, you have a lapse of consciousness and walk too close to the curb ...  Let me just say it is a good thing that health care in UK is free.


Another practice that frightened me are bicycles or motorcycles traveling between the moving vehicles in an operator invented cycle lane.  On the way to Heathrow a motorcycle clipped the mirror of our taxi as it passed us driving between us and a double decker bus.  I admit, I have driven motorcycles in my youth.  I owned two small Yamahas.  I even did some illegal driving on shoulders around cars and zig zagging between cars from open space to open space, but never like these nuts between moving gargantuan vehicles that could squish you spewing your guts out like a toothpaste from a tube.


There was one time I passed a line of cars on 18th street near Rittenhouse Square.  I had a female passenger on the back and her knees spread out a bit farther aound me than did mine around the gas tank.  I was traveling at less than 5 MPH, probably just fast enough to keep my balance and travel in a straight line.  A passenger, in one of those cars I was passing on the right, opened the door and struck my passenger in her knee.  I am sure it hurt.  Really hurt.  The screaming and crying may have given me a clue.  I never did that again.  

Source:allworldcars
This photograph is not London but this is the kind of lane inventing of which I write

I guess if I needed to drive in London I would become familiar with its peculiarities, but my blood pressure would be through the roof and my eyes bulging out of my head like some kind of surprised cartoon character.  I think, when I return, I will be content to leave the London driving to the locals.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Getting Into Photojournalist Mode

I arrived in Heathrow Airport early Monday morning a blogger.  I needed to start thinking as a photojournalist.  So, before I disembarked the plane, I took my camera, housed in a Tamrac shoulder bag, from the gym bag that was in overhead storage.  I had to be ready for any and all photo opportunities.  I was a blogger now.


I hadn't slept at all on the plane.  I watched one movie, several TV episodes and listened to music.  I must have been too stimulated to sleep.  After the plane landed and the signs were turned off, I stood in the aisle waiting to get into the new BA Terminal 5.  Years ago I watched an impressive TV commercial about this building.  The commercial had seals, rays, whales and bottlenose dolphins swimming in a water filled Terminal 5.  I thought, "It must really be impressive!"



I proceeded to the end of the aisle where the flight attendants stopped me.  The door was open and sunlight was streaming into the fuselage.  "Direct sunlight into the fuselage?", I thought.  Once given the all clear to advance I realized why.  We disembarked the plane via open stairs to the outdoors.  Stairs?!  Outdoors?!  The last time I disembarked outdoors was in 1977 when the frozen finger at JFK was unable to connect to the plane.  We had to use the inflatable escape chutes and slid to the snow and ice covered Tarmac.  That was the coldest winter I remember.  I swear the temperature went down below freezing at Halloween and didn't go above freezing until Easter.  That was over thirty years ago!  I was amazed that we were disembarking outside, down open stairs to an awaiting bus in the year 2011.  This is a new terminal!  It was opened to the public in 2008.  Three years ago!  Nonetheless, I descended the stairs and got on the bus, put down my bags, leaned against the padded wall and prepared for the ride to Terminal 5.


I told myself I had to realize I was in a foreign country.  They drive on the other side of the road.  They have a queen.  They speak a different language.  They have free healthcare.  They don't take care of their teeth.  I've got to relax, take it in stride, go with the flow.  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  I enjoyed the ride.

Inside Terminal 5

After a short walk in Terminal 5, I found myself in line for border processing.  It was at this point I began thinking as a photojournalist; being a blogger and all.  I took my camera from the bag and started to capture some photographic images.  Unlike a paparazzo, I had an insecure feeling.  A feeling I wasn't allowed to be photographing in the border crossing area.  As soon as I had an image on the digital card, I put the camera back in the bag.  Because I was insecure, I missed some photo opportunities.  I wasn't thinking like a photojournalist 100% of the time.  I was trying to get my head into gear but I missed a few shifts.  As a matter of fact, I still find myself missing opportunities.  I often forget to carry my camera.  I forget to jot down notes.  I forget.  I forget quite a bit.


Once in my daughter's cozy apartment and not needing the flash equipment until the wedding reception in Grimsby on Saturday, I placed the gym bag with the Sunpak 611 system out of the way on top of a wardrobe of our rear bedroom.  It was off the floor and out of sight.  All I really needed in London was the camera; the camera and to think like a photojournalist.


©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

London 2012 Olympics Minus One

My daughter and her new British husband live in an apartment overlooking the construction of the Olympic Park.  They were married back in May of this year in suburban Philadelphia.   Only a few friends and family members flew over from England to attend the ceremonies.  Now, we traveled to UK for a wedding celebration in the hometown of the parents of my son-in-law.


My wife and son departed on Wednesday night with me to follow the next Sunday.  I dropped them at PHL four hours before their flight.  

British Airways

They flew for six hours landing at LHR.  My daughter arranged for a car and driver to collect them from the airport and unload them at the apartment on the east side of London.

Heathrow International Arrivals just outside Customs

There was a mix-up with the car.  My wife and son arrived at the apartment five hours after border control and customs, fifteen hours after arriving at PHL and twenty-five hours after awakening that morning.  


The London residents and the tired Americans went to dinner and then home for some long awaited sleep.


The Londoners were off to work in the morning as my wife and son planned their attack on London sights and then they were off.


The apartment is at the far end of the complex.  There are about 100 yds between the apt building door and the street.  Once out of the complex, the Overground is another 200 yds away with a driveway, a street and some urban gardening, involving holes in the ground for future tree planting to spruce up the area for the Olympics, along the way.


Once on the sidewalk the next driveway is probably only 100 ft towards the train station.  This driveway is used by trucks serving a construction supply business and although I didn't see many large heavy trucks entering and exiting over that driveway there was a small deformation in the macadam probably created by one of those heavy trucks.  It looked as if the road surface got hot from the sun and a heavy weight made a depression that created a wave to one side.  If you could see a cross section of the road at that deformation it would resemble a sine wave.

Source:http://www.sprags.com/

[Do you see the impending train wreck?

Speaking of trains.  

London has the most amazing system of trains and subways or as they call them, Overground and Underground.  Travel in and around London is wonderful and on time, mostly.  But I am going off on a tangent here.]

Source:http://bernard.gibert.pagesperso-orange.fr/Exemples/k003.html

So here is how the trip to London started out.  My wife didn't notice the raised pavement, tripped and fell, striking one of her total knee replacements on the way to being sprawled out on the ground.  She was looking up into a foreign, though English speaking, sky and thinking she might be in need of healthcare.  Healthcare that was most likely to take a big bite out of our sightseeing and food budgets.  So she gets back to her feet, with help from our son, and limps to the Hackney Wick Overground station.  They were finally on their way to the Original London Sightseeing Tour in open top double decker buses that includes a boat trip on the Thames.

The Original London Tour

[In order to have some material for later blogs, I will get to the meat of the story.]


She didn't get medical attention for a week.  We traveled three hours in a car to my son's-in-law hometown where my wife was talked into seeking medical attention.  After dinner we set out for Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Waltham. 

After a two hour wait in the ER and some colorful chatting with an inebriated local young man who was there seeking medical attention for his ankle, 

came an interview with a white coated official doctor-like person.  My wife received a dose or two of low level radiation.  She was casually assured by the white coated official doctor-like person that it was probably not broken but she should wait to view the X-Rays before leaving.  I called for a ride only to call again to delay the arrival of the car because the X-Ray revealed a fracture of the base of her right Fibula and she needed a cast.

Source:http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00391
Her's is most like Type A

Well there she was in the midlands of England waiting for a nurse to plaster her foot and leg up to her knee.  All the worry of medical expenses was for nought, though.  For as long as she was not admitted to hospital, even though we are foreigners, UK's National Health Service covered all costs.  The services were on the people of the UK, even the crutches come with no conditions.

Waiting for the pink polyester cast after taking a deli-type number from a dispenser on the wall

On The Original London Tour Boat Trip

This made the visit a bit more, can I say comfortable?  That along with the fact that we no longer used the Underground opting to learn the bus routes.  The buses didn't require climbing stairs as did the Underground.  More time was spent on busses than if we used the Tubes.  On the other hand, we saw much more of the neighborhoods than if we were underground.

I sincerely want to give thanks to all the royal subjects in the UK for the great health services, crutches and casts we received in your lovely country.

We can't wait to return to take advantage of you again, soon.   However, I don't think it will be for the Olympics next year not even the Special Olympics.  The 2012 Olympics will be minus one, appreciative American.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved