Thursday, January 8, 2009

Heathrow and Jet Lag

Well, I have been rather neglectful of this blog recently, as I have been in the US over break, meaning that I have avoided anything that resembles work. It was really good to be home, and it went by really fast. I was both in Maryland at home and out in Chicago catching up with my Wheaton friends.

The flight this time went though London, and I was curious what Heathrow would be like, since I had read it's a terrible airport: unreliable, dirty, just not good. However, on my brief way through, I think it was one of the nicest airports I have ever seen. It was really modern and fancy, with the usual shopping and restaurants, but more upscale than I expected. I found this Japanese restaurant that was really authentic, they had yakisoba, tonkatsu, ramen, and even edamame as a side (for like 4 pounds, 6 or 7 dollars). I got ramen, and it was real ramen, quite filling, and cost 9 pounds, which came to 12 dollars with tip. Rather expensive, but only a bit more than the usual price for genuine Japanese ramen, like non-instant. It's really a whole different food.

But I digress. My sleep schedule has been rather warped since I have arrived. I got in Saturday night at 9:30 pm, went to bed at 2 am, then woke up at 5 am Sunday morning. I went to church, and then came back and fell asleep at 2 pm. I woke up a few times, but didn't get up until midnight. I hadn't eaten all day, so at 2 am I made some freeze dried beef stew which I had gotten for Christmas. I'm sure you all can relate, you know being in Nairobi and eating freeze dried food in the middle of the night because you can't sleep. I was up from midnight to 4 am, and then slept until 7:30. I went to my 8 am class, and then actually didn't go to bed until 11, but woke up anyway at like 3:45 am. Its getting better though, I didn't get up until 5 today. It's kind of nice, pretending I'm a morning person, having several hours to do things before my 8 am class, but I know it won't last. And it will also be nice to be on a normal schedule again. Its now 2:15, so I should go have lunch. I decided to utilize the faster internet capacities afforded by lunch hour (1 to 2), but the window of half decent speeds has passed. Until next time...

2 comments:

Andrew said...

hehe, nice job on getting real ramen when it's available! it did sound reasonably authentic, although i don't think having edamame on the side really contributes anything... i think that's pretty standard at japanese places now.

i know what u mean about pretending to be a morning person with that jet lag though, i totally did that after singapore and it was sweet cuz it lasted like a month

Angel said...

if you're remembering bad comments about heathrow from me, i do think it's a nice, clean airport. but the people working there were not very friendly. i didn't like the culture more than the airport itself. but maybe that's just because it's airport british culture and people are busy. british culture in general might be better.