This is always a bit of a non-day of any holiday. On this occasion, I had booked my accommodation for the extra night to avoid putting the owner in the position of giving me a “freebie” to store my case, and bag there. For this reason, I felt that I had a bit more freedom that I usually do on an evening-transport-day so I ventured out in to the city.
I strolled back to the “Stonewall” exhibition to put my thoughts into one of the books there, having remembered to put my pen in my bag. I then met Gary at his museum after buying coffee for us both at a Seattle-based coffee house. Somehow, the nice barista-person managed to fill my coffee higher than the level of the cup before putting the lid on. It went all over my shorts, and my “Fife Pride” T-Shirt. This was rather obvious as the T-Shirt is pale pink.
At the museum, Gary I talked of this, and that. Gary filmed a few videos of me taking about, and exploring the museum so he could use them for publicity. I was only too happy to oblige as he has been so kind throughout my trip.
We took lunch as “Pastis”, a French establishment near the museum. I very much enjoyed my “Croque Madame”, served with a salad and some fries, which we shared. After, I parted ways with Gary for the final time on this trip knowing we would see each other again on one side of the Atlantic, or the other.
I took one last walk round the nearby parts of the city before heading back to the apartment. I packed, had a shower, and left the keys in the appropriate place. The “6”, “E”, and “Air” trains took me back to the airport.
I was relieved that the passport, and security checks were fairly seamless after my experience entering the country. I had some time to wait so enjoyed a large peach flavoured drink. I was very thirsty as I had emptied my water bottle at the apartment and had not had a drink since.
The airline staff did an extra check of my documentation for some reason but it was not a big deal. We boarded close to the scheduled time. There was a very long taxi, and a wait in a queue of aircraft taking off so our official departure was 1 hour, 15 minutes after the scheduled time of 9.15pm EDT.
There were a few bumpy moments on the flight but it was mostly uneventful. I watched some episodes of the Netflix documentary “Pretend it’s a City” featuring Fran Leibowitz. I also watched an episode of “Star Trek: Voyager” after resolutely failing to get any sleep.
A bus took us from the ‘plane to the terminal. There was quite a queue at Passport Control but ultimately, I was through that, and customs without any difficulty.
The “JET 747” took me to Ferrytoll. I found my car where I left it, and drove home.
I laid down my hat.
