London Heathrow Airport | Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane

Kansas City – Well, the time at last has come. I spent the last night of my stay in the Alexander Fleming Halls of Residence in Hoxton up reading, and doing some minor research on local history. My thought was that it would help me to sleep on the plane if I didn’t sleep at all the night prior to. Hitherto, my abilities of sleeping whilst flying have been almost non-existent, but I thought I’d give this most extreme tactic a try.

At about 4.32 BST, I noticed some light creeping into my West facing window. Looking out, I beheld the last British sunrise that I’ll see for a while. It was a nice, soft sunrise, quite different from those out in the Midwest. At 5.00, I went out and walked about the neighbourhood, hoping to find a café that might be open where I could get a cup of tea to help cure my allergies, and possibly inhibit the oncoming cold. Sadly, all the local cafés were closed, as it was Saturday. Even Starbuck’s hadn’t yet opened. So, it was back upstairs to my room to sort out the last minute packing that I might have missed the day prior. Thankfully, there was nothing to have missed, so it was onto another hour and a half of waiting until anything would be open.

I spent that period of time sitting on the benches outside the hall, bidding farewell to my friends as they went on their ways in ones and twos. At 7.30 BST, I too left Fleming with a pair of friends, Cara and

Mike, and headed for Old Street tube, to catch a train to King’s Cross St Pancras and then onto Heathrow.

As noted in my last post, the hardest thing I have had to do in the past few weeks was to say goodbye to all these friends that made up what we’ve called the Old Street Gang. It really did seem like we were all together for a good year, when in fact it was a mere three weeks.

Luckily, I ran into two Old Street-ers, Kendall and Allison, in the entrance to security at Heathrow. We later ran into another member of the Gang, Kelsea, in the duty free area just past security. The four of us spent our last moments together in London, attempting to avoid thinking about the inevitable, but at the same time unable to avoid the reality that we faced. I was the first to leave, as my 12.30 flight to Minneapolis was due to begin boarding at 11.35.

I walked down the path to the plane, looking out the windows, capturing the sights for the last time for now. Mentally preparing myself for my return to the US, and future return to the UK, I boarded the

plane, and took my aisle seat. The flight back was mostly uneventful. I slept a good deal of the way, with the aid of a couple films like The Hobbit and Life of Pi, the audio of which helped put me to sleep. I was surprised at Delta’s hospitality, considering that they had 3 meals for us. Still, I’m switching to British Airways/American Airlines after this trip.

After a good 8 and a half hours in the air, we passed over the UP and began to descend into Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport. The process of going through Customs wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it could be. The biggest difference between the British and American Customs agencies is that HM Customs wasn’t understaffed. There were only 4 open desks at MSP, processing hundreds of people. After heading through Customs, I had my first experience of culture shock, when I went on the wrong moving walkway in the airport, realising that things in the States are on the right, not left. It just so happened that I was on the phone with my parents at this point, informing them of my arrival back in the Americas.

After a good three and a half hours sitting about in Minnesota, I boarded my flight to Kansas City. It was a short 58 minute flight between the homes of the Twins and Royals, but at long last we landed in Kansas City. It was great seeing my parents again, I missed them very much. It was just as good to see my dog, Noel, once more when we returned home.

I’ll really miss London, and all my friends. Since we’ve returned to our homes in the States, the group has been staying in touch, writing fervently about a reunion of sorts at some point in the near future. When and where that’ll be, we shall have to see.

Now, I may have started this blog as a way to record my study abroad experiences in London, but I intentionally named it so as to allow for it to continue after my return home. There’ll be more blog posts coming in the future, about such topics as my film work, return to Rockhurst, and other upcoming travels. For now, and to all of you who have been reading since I started this blog about a month ago, go raibh míle mhaith agaibh, thanks so much for reading and following my adventures. Until next time, tá!

Shoreditch, London – After 6 and a half hours in the air (8 and a half hours on the plane thanks to a great JFK traffic jam), I at long last made it to London-Heathrow yesterday morning (15 June) at 8.00. The flight was quite interesting, and didn’t have much trouble after we got off the ground. About two hours into the flight, for whatever reason I had the urge to lift the window shade just a bit. This “sudden urge” turned out to be quite rewarding, as I got an exquisite photo of the sun just beginning to rise over eastern Greenland.

Sunrise over Greenland, 15 Meith/Jun/Juin 2013 at 3.00 UTC.

“This “sudden urge” turned out to be quite rewarding…”

The Irish coast in Co Wexford from the air.

The Welsh coast near St David’s from the air.

A couple hours later we began to fly over an tír na mo aithreacha (the land of my fathers), Éire (Ireland). We flew in a straight line from about Ennis to Wexford, and then crossed the Irish Sea to another country of which I have heritage, Cymru (Wales). Over Wales, we flew from about St David’s in the west to the mouth of the Severn in the East.

I landed in London, as aforementioned, at 8.00 in the morning and made it through customs by about 9.00. There at Heathrow’s arrivals meeting place, I met up with the ISA London office, and ended up staying there in the arrivals area until 12.00 Noon when we as a group at long last left for our housing. It took us a good hour to drive across London to our building. My room is quite nice actually. It’s a bit on the small side, but is quite comfortable and cozy. The one complaint that I have at present is the lack of air movement, which will soon be redeemed by a fan, which hopefully I’ll be buying at Argos soon. My room is one of six that are grouped together in a flat, which is on the first floor (ground floor in US English) of the building. There are three other people living here with me, two of which are with ISA, and the third with another programme. We share a kitchen, and the third person and I share a toilet (bathroom).

“…but is quite comfortable and cozy.”

As I was originally typing this into WordPress last night at about 20.00, I began to feel a bit drowsy. However I was determined to continue with my typing and complete the article before bed. But alas, my computer, being the wise soul that she is (she as in how ships are called she or her) decided to go to sleep as well and stop working properly. So, I too retired for the night. I first woke up around 22.00, thinking that it was the next day already, forgetting in my exhaustion that the Sun stays out here until about 22.30 during the Summer months.

I woke up the next morning at my 7.30 alarm quite refreshed and free from the shackles of sleepiness. After showering (they use two handles, one for hot and one for cold water, thus it was hard to figure out the balance) and eating a light breakfast of a NutriGrain bar, I made my way up to my new parish church, St Monica’s in Hoxton. The Parish is an Augustinian one, and their Mass was quite nice. They had a few songs, without the need of a cantor, and chanted all of the prayers. There were a couple differences, like the priest asking God to “pencil out our sins” rather than forgive them, one which I found quite charming, but otherwise it was much the same as most of the Masses that I’ve attended back in the States or in Ireland. However, I had to leave early and miss the talk on the parish fundraiser as I was due back at the hall of residence for the group meeting for orientation.

For orientation we took the tube to Oxford Circus, which is the closest stop to the University of Westminster’s Regent Street Campus. However, just about 3 blocks south and 1 block west of the University was our true destination for that moment, the ISA London offices on Great Portland Street. The ISA staff have been truly welcoming of all of us on this trip, and one gent from the office, Tom, even took a good hour out of his day yesterday to help a fellow student, Jon from the great state of Wisconsin, (home to Michael Feldman (of NPR fame) and one of my favourite burger places, Culver’s) and I in getting UK mobile phones. We were able to find very cheap phones at the Phone Warehouse for £4.95 for the phone and £10.00 for the plan with O₂.

After orientation, Jon and I took a bit of an adventure and made our way down Oxford Street. I told him about a store where he could probably be able to get a much needed electrical adaptor, and we headed in what I thought was the right direction. Turned out I was a bit off in my geography, and we ended up going the wrong way by a couple blocks. So, after turning around and heading back west, we eventually found the store I was telling him about, Selfridge’s. Now, I wouldn’t have even heard of the retail giant had it not been for PBS broadcasting the ITV minseries about Selfridge’s founder, Harry Gordon Selfridge, on the Masterpiece series. We made our way into the store, and soon found ourselves in electronics, where Jon got his adaptor, and I met a very friendly and interesting clerk, who just so happens to be planning a North American vacation, which includes a drive from DC to Toronto. I wished him luck, and we continued onwards and upwards (literally in that sense as the electronics department is in the cellar) to the foodhall, which is on the ground floor. We ate at this nice sort of cafeteria style eatery, simply named Eat, where we both got the store’s signature beef sandwich, which was basically roast beef on bread of your choice, with whatever sort of mustard you wanted on top. Now, I’m not a mustard lover, and when ordering I thought by asking me if I wanted, “American, English, or French” they were talking about cheese. So, thinking English meant a nice cheddar, I spoke thus, and to my horror found mustard squirted onto my nice beef sandwich. I ended up eating the beef that didn’t have the mustard on it, and only the bottom slice of bread, as it also was naked in a sense.

We returned to the ISA office by way of it’s neighbour, the BBC Broadcasting House, and sat around until a tour bus came for the group. We took a nice tour of the major sites of London: Buckingham Palace, Westminster, and the City, and returned to our building forthwith afterwards.

I must say one of the most interesting parts of my day has been what has just happened prior to me sitting down to write this, grocery shopping in the UK. It’s just that bit different from shopping in Kansas City that I just had to mention it. See, I was surprised at just how little meat there was for sale on the shelves. Now of course, this was a smaller local grocer (a branch of Sainsbury’s to be exact), and so they wouldn’t have quite as much as a larger place, but it did surprise me. I ended up spending about £13 on food for the next couple of days, buying bread and preservatives for sandwiches, some pasta and a tomato basil sauce for dinner sometime (keeping with the Pasta & Prayer tradition), and other stuff as well.

So far this has been quite the exciting and interesting beginning to my time in London, and it certainly makes me look forward with anticipation at what is to come. So, for now, tá.