Day 5: Small disaster in London

I was flying out to London after lunch and had a hard time figuring out what to do with the little time that I'd had left in Paris that morning. The bed at the Marriott was amazing so I decided to capitalize on it and sleep in. It was terrific and my body was thanking me for the respite from the daily abuse and poor sleeping since flying here. I had been developing a cold since departing the plane and my activity and lack of sleep was helping it along I'm sure. I was feeling like a new man, but on the train ride to the airport I got a bit melancholy over the thought of leaving. I would have liked to spend a bit more time in France exploring.

It turns out that I had a bit of a personal disaster landing in Heathrow. When I went to grab some British pounds from the cash machine right after landing, I discovered that my wallet was missing. Went to lost baggage where some airport personnel informed me I needed to go, and contacted the gate to have them search the plane. I waited around for twenty minutes for one of the gate crew to call me back which never happened. They said they'd call back after fifteen, so I gave them a call. I was promptly told that they couldn't find it and the plane had left. Considering their immediate response to the question, I doubt they had ever looked for it. Oh well, it was my fault for not noticing sooner so I shouldn't be blame them. On reflection, I think there's a possibility I had been pick pocketed as I recalled being a bit rushed back in Charles De Gaulle and put the wallet in my back pocket when I had purchased lunch which I'm pretty careful not to do for just that reason.

I ended up sorting out a way to get online at the airport, call up Vanessa for her credit card, then ordering a train ticket online to make it out to Paddington station where I had arrangements to meet my UK colleague Jon. It turns out that we were too late to make the train we had prepaid for leaving Paddington for Bristol though, so we grabbed some curry and a couple of beers while catching up and waiting for the fares to go down. He was nice enough to loan me a hundred pounds while I got my finances sorted out. That was a giant help.