Day Thirtyfive - Jul 16, 2014

Last morning. We woke in the bunk room at St. Christopher's — the one with the damask wallpaper, which is a fancier thing to say than the room earned — packed the backpacks one final time, and stepped out into a London that had decided to be sunny about it. The rooftops and chimney pots were sharp against a blue sky that looked staged. After twelve days and three countries, the city was showing off on the way out the door.

We walked back to Borough Market to say goodbye properly. It has been doing business since 1756 and the signage will tell you so. There is a little garden behind the green ironwork, and a red phone box pressed into service as a cash machine, which is about the most British thing a phone box can do once nobody calls anymore. Breakfast was the Full English at Maria's Market Cafe — bacon, egg, sausage, a checkered tablecloth, a price that respected all three. Exactly correct. We will be thinking about it on the plane.

The rest of the day was logistics. An Underground escalator long enough to make you doubt you would surface again, the Heathrow corridor between Terminals 2 and 3, Theresa filling a notebook at a pub-and-kitchen while we waited out the gate. Then a long flight home, and the day's weather report, accurate as ever: airborne. Four of us assembled in Norway and disassembled at Heathrow with the luggage and most of the dignity accounted for. There is a backlog to sort through on the other side. That starts tomorrow.

<claude code>