Back To London

Just for the weekend

Yadhu Krishna Prabhu changed the flight time of my ticket to London from 11:30 a.m. to 7:10 p.m., so I get up late: at eight o' clock. I have a bit of the sniffles, so I spend most of the day lying in bed in the empty apartment, reading.

Yadhu Krishna Prabhu brings me some beans, spinach, squash, cheese, and a salad from the Jagannath Express restaurant. After lunch, I shower and shave (got to look good when I go through Immigration and Customs in London later this evening).

At three-thirty, Yasoda Nandana Prabhu picks me up from the apartment and drives me to the Moscow international airport. It is drizzling slightly, and the traffic is heavy; it takes over an hour to get to the airport.

The check-in line is not too long, but the customs line is dreadful: it snakes back on itself four times, and moves agonizingly slowly as the officials check each and every passport and embarkation card. I seriously doubt whether I will get through in time to catch my plane. Finally, after shuffling through the line for an hour and a half, I run to the boarding gate. The plane leaves twenty minutes late.

The Aeroflot aircraft is nice and big, and it is fairly empty, so I stretch out on three seats and take a nap. It is cloudy all the way from Moscow to London; I wonder if the European heat wave is over?

Dayanidhi Prabhu meets me with a garland at Heathrow airport. I will spend the weekend at the London Math, then return to India via Johannesburg, South Africa, where I will break my journey for a few days to spend some time at the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Ashram in Lenasia.