Gatwick

It's 8:35 am, and I'm sitting in the Gatwick South terminal departures lounge waiting for my flight to begin boarding. Security was time consuming, as usual. I'm getting quite used to having my bag picked off the x-ray machine to be hand inspected. I simply travel with too many electronic devices in my hand baggage, it makes for a confusing picture on the x-ray machine, what with my netbook, camera, and all the assorted infrastructure of batteries, chargers, adapters, etc. Other than that, the day has been fairly uneventful. I arrived at Victoria station earlier than expected, and a Gatwick Express was just about to leave. I maanaged to run down the platform and hop on, then had to walk down the train through all the first class carriages before I could get to plebe class. There wasn't any seats free, so I ended up standing, but it's only a half hour trip, so it wasn't too bad. When I got to the airport, earlier than I'd expected, I went hunting for a coffee shop, and the first one I found was actually in the arrivals lounge. After a brief moment of deja-vu, I realized I was standing exactly where I was when Richard and Elizabeth met me on my arrival, just over a year ago. Richard got me a coffee from the same Costa I had my coffee at this morning.

I just popped into the WH Smith here in duty free to pick up a novel for my trip. I have a fairly long one on my iPhone that I've been reading, but I don't know how much time I'll spend sitting in the sun reading, so I figured I better get some backup. It's almost become a bit of a tradition for me now too, buying a novel in the duty free. I've been trying not to buy books, because it's just one more thing I'll have to deal with selling/shipping/donating when I move back to Vancouver, but I can't seem to help it. At least I've avoided used book stores, and my aversion to paying full price for books helps keep it to a minimum.

They should be announcing my gate for boarding shortly, so I'm going to post this and save the battery for watching some Battlestar Galactica on the flight.