Long Day’s Journey Into Knights…

Knights of Malta that is.  Geddit?  See what I did?  That’s some Daily Show punditry at play…

Anyway, it was a long day’s journey.  Here was how the relaxing travel day was to play out: We walk a block to the Tube, take the District line four stops, disembark at Victoria, catch a train to Gatwick, check-in, have breakfast in the lounge, board the flight, arrive late afternoon, check-in to the hotel, wander about for a place for dinner.  Easy peasy.

First, it was raining.  Second, Stephen wasn’t feeling sufficiently mobile to handle luggage on stairs (thank you London Tube).  So we took an Uber.  Train was relatively painless.  Check-in went smoothly.  Lounge was surprisingly good and breakfast excellent as these things go.  We boarded at a remote stand off the tarmac and were in fact first on.  Then we sat there.  And we sat there.  And still we sat there.  And the AC didn’t work and the plane got stuffy and some of the passengers began having panic attacks and then, eventually, they determined the plane wasn’t “safe” to fly.  So we got off, walked across the tarmac to the remote stand, found out we’d board a new plane, we’d walk from Gate 34 to Gate 2, no small feat, and, well, about two hours later we were finally leaving the stand to taxi.

But here’s the thing: Our hotel check-in (a six room renovated medieval palazzo built by one of the Knights of Malta) closes at 9 PM.  And we weren’t going to arrive in the country until 8 PM.  And Europe has a new (time consuming) passport control entry procedure.  So there was, you know, some tension.  We took a taxi from the airport.  The driver said “I don’t know where that is.”  We showed him the address.  He said, “yeah, not sure about that.”  So he dropped us in a square and told us the only other time he’d taken passengers to Mdina they walked off down a narrow alley.  So that’s what we did.  And then, just before 9, we checked-in.  Everything is apparently safer, streamlined and better this century.  Huh.