Last hurrah

Well, last meal and pint at the Devonshire Arms. Wouldn't you know it. A burly, heavily drunk Polish lout, who had no English, was hitting up everyone in the pub, male or female, attempting to communicate in horrendous pidgeon. Finally his son (with equally execrable English, but not nearly as polluted) managed to get him out the door. Dragging him. Your one was on the bar, and thankfully refused him more drink. He remarked later that an affectionate drunk and a belligerent drunk were not very far removed, and I agreed with him completely.

My little excitement for the evening. Or so I thought. Back in my room, I meet my temporary roommates - three giddy Swedish college girls with no room manners whatsoever, but quite friendly and basically harmless. I go to do my internet thing. Can't register for tomorrow's flight. Eek. Bank accounts - all quiet on the western front. Blog. updated. All set for the morning.

Says I.

At 3 am, the 3 giddy girls giggled their way in. Trying to be quiet, but I heard them laughing and singing in the halls. Then coming in and trying so hard to be quiet. Sleep was hopeless in any case, because the particular bed I had been given had all its bolts showing through. Or that's what it felt like. I laughed and said I wasn't asleep. So then they giggled away out loud for another while. By and by, everyone got to sleep. I got to sleep.

At 6:30 am, the fire alarm went off. Oh, it made a mighty din (or is that djinn?). My three Swedish girls were highly confused and very, very asleep. One's phone alarm had gone off about a half hour before, and that had woken me, so my brain functioned enough to say "that's the fire alarm and we must all leave the building NOW". We did. Spectacle of full house of semi-comatose hostellers staggering down the stairs and out into the street in various states of disrepair. I remembered to grab my wallet and my key, and I did manage to pull on a pair of trousers and find a sweater jacket, but of course all my electronic gear was in my laptop bag, locked away.

A few others out there had brought out their cameras with them when they exited, and were taking pictures of the fire engines and firemen doing their thing. More entertainingly, they were taking pictures of all the hostellers milling out on the street at what still felt like the middle of the night. In addition to the fire alarm, the hostel staff had also gone through the building pounding on every door and shouting "fire alarm - leave the building!". Despite that, at the end, I saw a couple of heads poking out of upstairs windows, looking around, clearly wondering what was going on. Some people can sleep through anything. Probably still quite drunk. If her mates hadn't been there, the girl above me would have. We had to shake her to get her out of bed. She couldn't figure out the whole dressing thing, so she just wrapped her self slowly in the army blanket we are all supplied with and made her way out in that.

We were eventually let back in the building. Either a false alarm, or the firemen figured out what the problem was. I got to the room and found all three girls sitting forlornly on the floor outside the room. Apparently, I was the only one who had remembered my pass key. Everyone remembers different things. Actually, I remembered where everything was, but decided that I didn't have time to locate them all. So I did not go for the laptop bag or the boots. Though I probably should have.

After all that fol de rol, there was no way I was going to go back to sleep again, so I got up and took my laptop down to try and check in online for my flight. No dice. eek squared. So I decided to check out as soon as I had finished packing and try to sort things out at the airport. I did. But of course, I was there way too early, and so sat in stages at Heathrow. Stage 1: wait till I could check my bag in. Stage 2: go through security and wait till my flight gate was assigned and up on the board. Stage 3: wait till my flight boarded. Not auspicious in general, considering what my usual luck on returning flights usually is.

But once all that business was done, the flight went splendidly. I have another chance-met companion as a seat mate; Paula, wife of programmer, home-schooler, art tour guide in Italy, likes science fiction, and is an excellent conversationalist to boot. Other seat-mate; Andrew, a web-programmer from England (photograph of plane wing courtesy of him). Excellent! Extra bonus? An awesome flight attendant - Chris Vinall. Now that REALLY makes a change!!

I am currently sitting in the Seattle airport, waiting for my flight to San Francisco. And then to bed.