Second Spire to the Right

There’s a reason it’s called a red-eye flight. Flying overnight sounds efficient on paper, but the bleary, bewildered haze it induces is almost always inevitable. Perhaps there’s something of a rite of passage, though, in sleepless stumbling around airports that makes the journey feel like a strange dream, and the waking up upon arrival all more glorious. 

When my cousin and I landed in Keflavik, Iceland for a brief layover, it was 6:25 a.m. local time, but 2:25 a.m. in the time zone we had just left. Wandering around a new airport in a new country for an hour at that time of the morning is a particularly surreal experience. A pink light was beginning to seep into the edges of the horizon when we boarded busses to the misty tarmac, trying not to jostle against the other standing passengers. The second flight, I could barely look away from the window, first as we rose into the new sunlight, and then as the upper islands of Scotland began to be visible below. Sleep was an elusive afterthought at that point.

After landing in London, we dragged our luggage onto the trains that would take us into central London from Gatwick. Watching small towns and London suburbs fly passed the window, brought on a feeling of nostalgia and excited familiarity. It had been five years since I was last in the UK, and to be returning with my cousin was a dream we had been scheming since we were little girls. 

The train let us off in Victoria Station, where we transformed into Those People™ dragging suitcases onto the tube and trying to take up as little space as possible. At last we emerged into the cavernous Paddington station, bursting with the echoes of travelers. The noises of traffic, the rumble of luggage wheels on bumpy pavement, and sidewalk conversations, blurred into a sleep-deprived tapestry of sound. We found our hotel, dropped the bags, and stumbled into the corner pub. Pimms cups, with the Rugby World Cup in the background, comprised an ideal first “cheers” to London. 

Before long we were heading back to the tube. This time, the destination was for a very happy reunion with friends, the first time meeting of their much-beloved and greatly-esteemed cat, and celebration of a dear friend’s birthday.

By the time we were back on the lamp lit streets surrounding Paddington, sleep felt within reach for the first time in over 24 hours. 

In graduate school, I loved taking the bus from Oxford to London for a Saturday or an evening. However, waking up already in London, particularly after the first sleep since a marathon of luggage-dragging, holds a particular charm. A morning calm had fallen on the neighborhood, losing some of the frenzy of the night before. The sun illuminated the picturesque white rowhouses.

We wandered in search of coffee and croissants, discovering several quaint cafes in our neighborhood. The days ahead would be delightfully full, but the morning provided much-needed calm…and a much-needed flat white.