Walk to the JW, Taxi to the Airport, Flight to Chicago, Airport Transit to T5, Long-Ass line for Security, Flight to Dublin, Flight to Heathrow, Train into Paddington, Tube to Marylebone, Train to Princes Risborough, Rail Replacement Bus to Aylesbury, Walk to the Travelodge.
Gave myself plenty of time with an afternoon flight so I was able to take a leisurely breakfast at Cafe Patachou, wander around the almost entirely Gen Con free convention center, and check out a smidge before noon. Patachou isn’t so much a tradition for me as it is a very nice, chill place to have breakfast. It’s absolutely rammed during Gen Con, so I like to visit when it’s quiet, and I can mooch back & forth to the coffee, take my time, and know that I’m not taking up a table they could be filling with more patrons.
I could have grabbed an airport taxi from my hotel, but it’s a great deal easier over at the JW, which has a huge forecourt, so I wheeled the case over there instead.
I’d done online check-in for the suitcase and I, so could just use a little kiosk to print my boarding pass & baggage tag. Indianapolis TSA remain as chill as ever; Not sure I’ve ever seen someone there be unpleasant.
Someone did leave their footwear behind, so there were calls going out in the terminals for “anyone who is missing their footwear, please come to security check to retrieve your flip flops”.
Flight to Chicago was full, but uneventful. I had to recover the case in Chicago, move to a different terminal, check it & myself in at the desk ( I’ve never caught the Aer Lingus kiosks working ), and then stand in a long-ass line for security screening. Not sure why it’s so long there, but it stretches back so far they have to maintain breaks in it for the doors into the terminal.
There’s not much to say about that terminal. It’s not one of the bigger ones, and there’s not much airside. The terminal I flew into is much bigger, and I remember it being more interesting as a place to wander around.
The flight to Dublin wasn’t full. There were two of us in a central row of four, and the rest of the plane was similarly sparse, so people shuffled themselves around to get comfortable.
I slept a fair bit by reclining my seat & putting the entertainment system onto a relaxing ambient track; the other person in my row was short enough to lie on 2½ seats when the armrests were folded up as high as they’d go. (45° or so, for some reason)
The entertainment system wasn’t the improved/fixed version from the Dublin – Washington flight, unfortunately, so it got stuck on the ambient track. Fortunately, I expected that to happen.
Dublin to Heathrow was similarly empty, and I had a row to myself for a one-hour flight.
Took some nice pictures of the view from my window.
Getting to Paddington is easy, though I wish the signs were more specific at Heathrow Station, because it can feel like you’re going the wrong way.
Paddington is where travel got complicated. Well, maybe after Paddington & the tube to Marylebone, but it got complicated.
Engineering works on the Chiltern line meant that no trains were going as far as Aylesbury, and if I wanted to go to Aylesbury, I had to take the other line, then cut across. Normally there’s a train.
This time it was a bus.W
Which was awful, partly because of the twisting roads, and partly because of some amazingly annoying passengers with no concept of inside voices.
I did, eventually, make it to my hotel, with it’s view of the canal. And ducks.
