Heathrow Sucks

My flight from Budapest was delayed over an hour, because the plane arrived late from London, because of bad weather in Finland. Which means I missed my connection, which means I have to spend the night in the outskirts of London, which means clearing customs and navigating my way through Heathrow to the customer service desk and the bus to the hotel. All of which involves nearly four hours of walking and standing in line. (One hour forty minutes in line at customs alone. And the worst part is, the US probably treats foreign visitors just as badly or worse, so I can't even complain properly.) And then, when I finally get to the hotel, they explain that I'm not allowed to eat dinner until 10:00 because that's the arrangement they have with British Airways, and apparently Hilton is eager to give its guests crap service as long as they can make arrangements with someone else to blame it on.

Oh, and the vegetarian snack on the flight from Budapest was a mayonnaise sandwich, which looked so unappetizing I didn't even open it. So all I've had to eat today is a hundred grams of sunflower seeds and a small bag of hard candy.

Ugh. The one bright spot in the whole day is finding a Hungarian children's book in the airport that's just about the right level for me to read without a dictionary. I don't know all the words, but the stories are simple enough that I can figure out what they all mean from context.

I suppose there are worse problems to have, but I hate experiences that are more unpleasant than they need to be.