London

So I left Denver at 8.15pm on Monday, June 30. My itinerary, which ends with my arrival in Entebbe, Uganda on Wednesday morning, includes a lengthy layover in London – nine hours, to be exact. I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether nine hours is enough time to scoot out and see a bit of the city, but I’d rather eat glass than be stuck in Heathrow all bleedin’ day, so I decide to chance it.

I follow a motley crew of rock-climbing teenagers (they’re headed to France to climb – how cool is that!) and their fearless leaders – one of whom looks astonishingly like my new boyfriend, Michael Stipe – to customs, get my stamp, ask a few directions, and head for the Tube.

I’m without a guidebook, but all I really want is some good Indian food which, for all its rap about bad domestic cuisine, London has in spades. I hop the Piccadilly line towards Leicester Square and Covent Garden (the theatre district! wee!) – a good 50-60 minute ride from Heathrow – and notice a slight, withered woman to my left, talking to herself. I think that whatever the subject is, it must be grave, for she is sagging under some great, invisible weight. Her thin, papery skin hangs in loose jowls; her long aquiline nose slopes downward and her hunched shoulders curve around her breasts, which hang from her bony frame like two small but heavy sandbags. I hope she works it out before she sinks into the floor beneath her.

Dappled sunlight dances across the faces of the other passengers and warms my skin. The wind and the wheels roar in my ears. I close my eyes and smell the sweet, spicy scent of men’s aftershave. Two young Polish guys have boarded and sit across from me, one bony and angular, the other sporting an oxford whose buttons stretch optimistically across what I am certain is his recently-amassed, still-unacknowledged new girth. I think perhaps the shirt fit at the start of the school year, but that the end has brought with it the proverbial Freshman Fifteen and he’s just not ready to admit it, despite the evidence. They are earnest in conversation, sharing a laugh at something in the magazine they read together. Each shift in position, each full-body chortle, sends a cloud of their clean, masculine scent my way. Neither is particularly handsome, but they sure do smell good. I bite the inside of my cheek; I think I feel a tingle.

At Leicester Square, I hoist my backpack on my shoulder and head out to enjoy the few hours of my London nano-vacation. I spy Maharaja Restaurant and know immediately where I’ll have lunch. It’s too early yet, so I poke my head in and inquire about the hours. Alom tells me they will be serving until 11pm. I thank him and say I’ll be back at 4pm.

I wander to Trafalgar Square, where hundreds bedecked in red and white mill about celebrating Canada Day, and park my tired ass on the lawn in front of the National Portrait Gallery. I try to nap, but the sun is too hot; I try to read, but I’m too tired. I decide instead that I will just sit and simply enjoy the fact that I’m lucky enough to be lounging on the grass in front of the National Portrait Gallery in London on a glorious Tuesday afternoon. With nothing else to do but catch a flight to Africa (Africa! where I’ll be for five weeks!) in six hours. Awww yeah!

It’s nearing 4pm, so I make my way back to Covent Garden and duck into a gourmet Italian cheese shop. I reminisce for a moment about my week in Bore last summer before I stumble into a narrow alleyway lined with tiny used and rare book shops. I see a bright yellow, circus-like sign: David Drummond – Theatrical Bookseller & Ephemerist. Are you kidding me? It’s a square, stuffy, musty-smelling old shop lined floor to ceiling with books about magic, opera, dance, and the theatre, and old playbills and marquee one-sheets (and post-card-sized replicas of said one-sheets) from long-since-shuttered West End Theatres. It’s fabulous. Mr. Drummond obliges my questions politely but grudgingly. He’s doing his books, see. By hand. As he has for the last 41 years (that’s how long he’s been open), I’m sure. He needs to concentrate.

I leave Mr. Drummond to his bookkeeping and head for Maharaja. Alom grins sheepishly, surprised to see me. He didn’t think I meant it when I said I’d be back and, well, the chef has gone on break. But after a brief conversation (with the manager? the owner? the maitre d’?) in what I later learn is Bangli, I am ushered to a seat and handed a menu. “It’s ok,” Alom says, so I order chicken curry and pilau rice (with saffron and butter and cardamom, oh my!) and chat with Abdul while I wait. I savor each bite when it comes. It’s not quite Muskaan (my most favorite Indian restaurant in the world, where I’m hoping we’ll go at least once when I get to Lusaka, Chris and Amy, hint hint), but it hits the spot.

The customs official told me to be back two hours before my scheduled flight departure, so I pay my bill and start off for the Tube. I get back to Heathrow with more than enough time to spare. In fact, I’m so early, they haven’t even posted my gate information yet. I find a corner table in a Food Court and read, fatigue buzzing in slow-moving waves through my body. Soon, I think. Soon I will sleep.

At my gate, I strike a few yoga poses to loosen my stiffening limbs … and spot a pigeon waddling under the seats.

Yep. I’m on my way to Africa.