On planes, hostels and interesting shopkeepers

16:20, GMT. We arrived safe and sound at Heathrow Airport in London. The customs queue was long but speedy. The kind lady asked me what kind of engineer I am and I didn't need to show proof of my short stay here.

Terminal 4. Half of our team arrived on a direct flight from Mexico City, the other half flew to Amsterdam and then to London. Their flight was scheduled to arrive a bit before 6 PM and so we waited. They arrived and the consensus was to spend 50 minutes on the tube instead of paying a ludicrous amount for the train (somewhere around 30 pounds!)

Made our way to the tube and explained the guy at the counter that we needed to get to King's Cross St. Pancrass station and how much we would need on the Oyster Card (we're not used to flexible pricing on the underground, our system has a fixed price for all trips). After spending 10 quid each, we made our way to the hostel.

Once there, we were pleased to know the staff knows 'castellano' and we get our room. We decide to go for a walk before calling it a night. We head to a kebab restaurant, the first in a long succession on our stay there. I tell myself to be brave and try something new: a Kofte kebab and fish and chips. Man, Londoners have a very different conception on how to prepare a fish.

The night is hot and our second stop is a small convenience store on the corner. We're still not sure whether the gay clerk was flirting with us or just excited abut having international customers; either way he gave us a free lollipop that tasted like medicine. He told us drinking is legally allowed on the streets (a lie that wouldn't last long).

Back in the hostel, we split ourselves in the assigned beds and try to sleep through one of the hottest nights of my entire life (being in a completely closed bedroom didn't help either, but for the price we paid it was almost heaven). In retrospective, I should've massaged my feet when I had the chance...

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