Tea and Biscuits

'Tea and Biscuits.'

Well, here we are. T minus 2 hours, and I'm set up in the main lounge at T3, tripping people up with my frankly impractical bag, getting disapproving looks from bored Duty Free staff, and fighting with internet connection. Reportedly there's a 'Free Public Wi-Fi' network, but its signal is so weak that whenever I try to connect I get bounced back to 'Boingo,' which wants me to pay £10 for an hour's worth of internet. I'm fairly tempted to go and dig in at the Starbucks across the way, but that would involve repacking the carry-on, running over peoples' feet, digging out the wallet and boarding card, and then attempting to find a table. As it is I'm currently having fun entering random streams of digits into the Boingo login page, and pretending that my giant headphones are somehow cool and retro.
I arrived at the airport at 8.30 if not earlier, and made it through check-in and security fairly quickly (and somehow managed to avoid having to pay an overweight charge on my big bag, which I think was more luck than skill in packing...), although the woman on the check-in desk recommended that I removed 3 kilos (I'm blaming my Training and Pupillage Handbook for all of those) from my pull-along bag and put them in my handbag. From what I understand it makes very little difference as, if I do have a bulkhead (and, at £25 for the privilege, I'd better!) all my bags will have to go into the overhead locker during take-off and landing. As it is, I've spent the time since checking in shuffling books back and forth between the two bags, which is something of a lengthy task, and one I intend to avoid doing again until they call my gate.
The bag shuffling and general juggling have been made much worse by my acquisition of (shock horror) a shiny Duty Free bag. (I'm still not sure if that should be capitalised- technically the phrase shouldn't be a proper noun, but I've only ever seen it treated as such.) On Saturday evening, while in the middle of worrying about whether or not I'd packed my PJs (I had), I suddenly realised that I hadn't thought to get a gift for my landlords. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, given my strict 'I'm skint' stance, but given they're putting me up in their home for 9 months I thought something special was called for. A quick enquiry to the general knowledge database that is my Facebook friend list revealed that tea came top of the quintessential 'Englishness' list, with biscuits (to, I imagine, take away the taste and the polite expressions) coming in second. Hence how I've ended up with a shiny bag of Twinnings Earl Grey and Walkers Chocolate Shortbread. They'd better go down well- they're certainly causing me enough trouble!
It's now 10.35, and my gate opens in half an hour. A part of me still feels sick from the adrenaline, which is probably why I'm managing to be so incredibly clumsy. Soon I'm going to have to pack up (again), and head off to Smiths in order to get some mints for my aunt and an inconveniently bulky bottle of water for myself. There's still been no improvement on the internet front, so I guess I'll be posting this in Hartford, or, if I'm really really lucky, Toronto.
See you on the other side.

[Ed- posted from ... TORONTO, due to an hour's delay on the plane. Which actually worked out pretty well for me!]