Heathrow Airport

It is July 3rd and I am on my way to Amsterdam!

I spent last night at Thistle Hotel near Terminal 5. They have individual pods to transport you to the hotel. It was fun. Very futuristic. If you were a kid in the 60s. Very now if you weren’t.

The hotel was okay. Bathtub with no hot water. Ummm, disappointing.

But, I had just come from spending a wonderful evening with my friends Philip and Tracey in Sydenham. And, Sunny and Dottie whom I dogsat last year. Tracey put on a spectacular spread of vegetarian tapas and a chocolate meringue cake that was soooo good.

They gave me perfect directions to get me from their house to Heathrow and Philip, Sunny, and Dottie walked me to the train station.

Earlier in the day, I checked out of a little private room that I booked on Booking.com that was in the home of Jameliah. She is from Iran. I apologised for my country blowing her country. She was gracious and actually endorsed regime change in Iran.

When, I checked out she offered to keep my bag and drive me into town but it was a ten minute walk that I was happy to do. So, she said, tell me where you are at the end of the day and I will bring your bag. Which she did at 6 PM near Philip and Tracey’s house.

After I left Jameliah, I went to Viva Cafe Bistro. I had a really delicious breakfast for 10 pounds. My keyboard is not cooperating for symbols.

Then, I took out some paints and did the view of the buildings across the street.

While I was painting the servers came to look and talk. One lady is from Kosovo and the other is from Honduras. Both of them encouraged me to visit their countries which they described as beautiful but did not have economic opportunities for them so the emigrated. That says something about immigrants. These ladies would have chosen to stay in their homes but need to earn a living.

They asked if they could see more photos. I didn’t have many because some were in my suitcase. I had one in my backpack in the same sketchbook I was working in and one postcard.

I told them that I didn’t have many with me because I give them away so I don’t have to carry them. The sweet blonde asked if they could have one so I gave them Port Holland. I asked for a group photo before I left.