Wednesday, May 19, 1999 The Eagle Robert and his wife Joyce landed in London at the Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3 about 10:30 a.m. They boarded a bus to Flight Connections, where they were put in a holding area until another bus arrived to take them to Terminal 1 or 2. Digression: A word of caution to anyone thinking about saving $328 by flying from Philadelphia through Heathrow to Frankfurt: Don't do it, my friend! Heathrow is a sprawling labyrinth of many buildings and passageways worse than the Boston subway system, where a man once entered a station and was never heard of again. Now I know why American corporations send their executives with families from Philadelphia to Frankfurt first-class and direct. No young person under the age of sixty-six could ever traverse Heathrow. No sireee! We went down some stairs and read the following message: "FLIGHT 904: WAIT IN LOBBY." It seemed like an adequate instruction. "Where is the lobby located, Mr. Computer?" Silence. So we frantically sought some help. But no employee was anywhere in sight . . . . Finally, to make a long story short, I found a terminal screen hidden behind a very large pillar, that calmly informed us that Flight 904 was leaving at Gate 27. Why, it was almost like meeting Bill Gates personally -- we were so elated! Now a word or two about reaching our precious Gate . . . . As you probably know, William Penn, Ben Franklin or somebody else laid out the long city blocks of Philadelphia -- maybe the longest in the world. Well, a descendant of one of the two or three illustrious people just mentioned must have designed the layout of the flight gates at Heathrow. We walked and walked . . . and were shunted along like two packages on conveyor belts that probably had minimum speeds of twenty-five miles per hour . . . . We boarded our plane with about five minutes to spare; but were then delayed another thirty-five minutes . . . only this time I did not bother to listen to the captain's explanation, as my eyelids were dropping lower than a crescent moon sinking below a blue lagoon . . . . Man -- were we glad to see Molly, Stephanie (5) and Jonathan (3)! That evening we had a delightful visit and dinner with die Familie Diehl . . . then walked to our hotel -- about ten minutes away -- Watthalden Villa . . . . We slept like two hibernating bears in the Great Black Forest!