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Day 17 Thursday, July 27, I arose to the noise of street traffic about 7:00am. I can't say I really slept well, because I woke up a few times during the night. I guess I was a little worried about the absence of a security lock on the door.
I went into the bathroom down the hall and was happy to see that I would
be the first one to use it that morning. It took so long for the hot
water to come out of the shower head, I thought I would have to take a
cold shower. Finally the hot water came and all was right with the
world.
I threw on my clothes and walked down to Victoria Station to McDonald's and bought a large coffee, hash browns and an Egg McMuffin. I took the food back to my room and watched a little news on the telly (tv). I was not pressed for time so I slowly packed and threw away the nearly empty toiletry items that were just excess baggage. About 9:30, as I was leaving, Mrs. Russel met me on the second floor. I handed over the keys and wrestled my bags down those narrow stairs to the street. Back at Victoria Station, I went to the American Airlines check-in counter, but I was about an hour too early for them to check bags for my flight. I was still a little hungry, so I bought another Egg McMuffin and large coffee. I sat on one of the seats in the station and read some of a discarded newspaper and worked a crossword puzzle.
At Gatwick, I wandered around the upper level mall and went into several shops. Having been on my own for a week, I was mildly shocked when Gary greeted me in the Cadbury shop. Soon, I was bumping into many of my fellow extension travelers. Everyone had to get in the queue for passport check-in and that was a zoo. I went through a few duty free shops before going to the boarding gate. The plane was a little late taking off, but who's counting when it is a 7 1/2 hour flight? I got an aisle seat this time, and the plane had much more legroom than the plane we arrived on. Our Dallas arrival was pretty much on time. We collected our bags and zipped through customs. The "Busses by Bill" bus was waiting for us to tote us to Love field. The bus dropped us off at Love field and everyone checked their luggage for the 9:10pm flight to Lubbock. There was actually a flight scheduled to leave Love for Lubbock about 8:00pm, but when we asked the ticket person if we could take an earlier flight, we were informed we couldn't change our flight because our tickets were at the group rate....Rats. It was a long 3+ hours waiting for our flight. Everyone was getting tired. I was ok, but a little tired too. About 8:30, someone, I think it was Gary, asked me if I would go back to London right now if the ticket were paid for. I told him I would go in a heartbeat if I didn't have a job I had to get back to and if I had enough money to live on over there. I definitely did not get enough of Europe. There is so much to see and so little time and money. Our Southwest Airlines plane finally arrived. We boarded, and were in Lubbock in less than an hour. My mom met me at the gate. We went to wait for the bags and Voila! They were already there. They had arrived on the previous flight. What a great trip!!! End Day 17
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