Last week I traveled to England to see my wife graduate to be a Master in English. I consider myself a mere amateur in the language and find this quite impressive. She is part of the Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College. This year she attended their campus at Lincoln College (Oxford University) whence she graduated.

I left my apartment in downtown Moscow a little before 8am to catch my 11am flight at Sheremetyevo airport. Rather than hire a car I decided to take the new airport train. The train leaves from Belorussky station (which is only a few metro stops from my apartment) and goes straight to Sheremetyevo every 30 minutes or so for a mere $10 (compared to ~$75 to hire a car or taxi). The trip to the airport was uneventful.

Much had changed at Sheremetyevo since I was there last in 2006. There is a new terminal and I believe they have refurbished one of the old ones. The terminal I flew into was new and reminded me very little of the horrendous terminal I was in 4 years ago. Aside from there being no toilet paper in any bathroom in the concourse, the terminal was very nice.

The fun began when I got to Heathrow. I've used my acute powers of observation over the last months to learn that Russians hate lines. Russians will also do whatever is necessary to avoid standing in line for an extended period of time. Our flight arrived at Heathrow just after a Delta flight from America. The Delta passengers had a slight time advantage getting to the passport control queue and were waiting patiently in line when Aeroflot Flight 281 from Moscow came storming down the hall. The Russians basically disregarded the existing line and muscled their way pasted the dumbstruck Americans to get to the front as quickly as possible. The poor Americans had no idea what was going on. They used phrases like, "Can you believe that guy just did that?", but of course were too nice to make any confrontations. When the dust had settled all the Russians were at the front of the queue and the Americans, still not understanding what had just happened, were at the back.

I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 4 to find it was the only terminal where there wasn't a bus to Oxford. After walking around looking at signs like a lost tourist, I eventually went to the underground and took the tube (subway) to Terminal 4. With as much money as has been put into Heathrow, I still don't think they've got the transfer between terminals down quite right yet. To get from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 (where I was told to catch my Oxford bus by the Information Desk) you actually need to take a train to the Terminal 1/2/3 stop, then get on another train to Terminal 5. What a pain in the arse. On the trip home I found out that the other option was to take a city bus that stopped at all the cargo terminals along the way - not a significantly better option. I finally made it to Terminal 5, found the Oxford bus and was on my way.