Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

It was not a feeling I’d expected stepping off the train in London, but none the less I felt it, so I turned to Christina with a smile and said “It’s good to be back.” It’s hard to explain how I experienced such a feeling of familiarity in such unfamiliar surroundings, but somewhere within the sights and sounds of Paddington Station there’s a pulse that’s unmistakably European.

For three years we’ve been dreaming of our return to Europe, and while the attractions of London are quite underwhelming, I couldn’t have been more excited to be back. Brushing our way around lost tourists, we managed to see everything we had hoped in our short layover, including timing our visit to Big Ben just right to hear the bell ring at the top of the hour.

Our second visit to Europe has given us immense confidence in our abilities to navigate our way around any new town in any new language. We’ve also given up on trying not to appear like tourists. Riding “The Big Bus” around London dressed like we were heading to the gym, it was hard not to feel like we were perpetuating an American stereotype while in one of the best dressed cities we’ve visited. The fashionable attire, especially of the men, in London was something we really noticed, and our train was the first we’ve been on to feature a hook on every seat to hang your suit coat.

Just to make sure we weren’t getting too comfortable, I managed to keep us on our toes as we were leaving London and we almost missed our flight. Christina thinks I have a real skill for this sort of thing. Heathrow Airport has the most international travel of any airport in the world, and I would challenge anyone to find one with tighter security.

Our first time through the security (yes I said first time) both of my bags were flagged as I had not followed all the rules exactly. This is where Christina would point out that there are clearly posted rules and if you just follow them you will not have any problems. This is where I counter that in America we have all the same rules posted, but in reality they were only enforced for about five years after 9/11 and for the last six years or so I have never been held up for not taking my liquids or my laptop out of my bag. Well, in London they aren’t playing around as every one of my liquids was inspected on the bottle to see the exact amount and anything over 100ml was tossed out. For me, this meant losing my contact solution and shampoo, which were both in travel sizes but still too large.

After our delay in security we realized that our flight was in one of the other four terminals and the terminals were not connected. The gal at the desk was heartbroken to tell us this thinking there was zero chance we would make our flight. She hadn’t met the Verheuls. Pointed in the right direction we started to run, backpacks bouncing, through several back doors and corridors until we popped out onto a street behind the airport where we stopped a shuttle bus just as the driver was pulling away. As we exited the bus we hit the next terminal running again where, seeing our quickened pace, the staff directed us through the fast track lane of security and my bag was once again flagged and inspected. Unsure if our plane was already boarding, I sent Christina on to tell them I was on my way and, after my second hand inspection, we reached the gate in time for our flight to Madrid.

We were in Madrid just for the night and the Hilton loaded me up on shampoo samples, but now I’m still searching for contact solution. From what we saw of the landscape it looked very much like Eastern Washington with a little touch of Arizona, but you’ll have to check back in 2015 for “Verheul’s Do Spain.”