Day 77, 24 March: Reunion

Holiday Inn Express in North Acton, London, Day 77. Reunion

      After the sleep-deprived mess and disorientation of a 6:15am start to a morning devoted to traveling, I finally told the bus driver I was not going to the airport (which wasn’t even a stop) but to the rail station. Bus, train halfway, bus a bit, train to finish off the journey to Liverpool Street Station in London, then Tube to Heathrow airport (Zone 1 to Zone 6).

      Katya called as I was in Terminal 1. My fantasy of being the one to greet her did not match reality identically, about which I was ashamedly disappointed for a second. But then…

      I saw her. She was sitting down. People moved in front of me, blocking her from my sight and making me do a double-take. It was her.

      I ran, overstuffed backpack and all. The ‘hi’ and the hug were simultaneous, but whereas the ‘hi’ lasted a second, the hug five minutes. Finally, we disengaged, looked at each other. It was unreal. Here was finally the proof that we had been waiting for someone for these three months, here was the person we loved right in front of us. We timidly held hands, almost not knowing how to, as if relearning our old ways together. The first kiss in three months too.

      After thirty minutes that felt like a minute, we got up and located where Dominion Theatre was to see the musical we had gotten tickets for, the modern Queens musical ‘We Will Rock You’ (by Ben Elton; the musical was not made by Queen). We made our way through the Underground to Tottenham Court—with five minutes to spare. Not even in a hurry, though.

      The musical was exhilarating. Despite the male protagonist’s wimpiness, the female lead (‘Scaramouche’) was a hit, teasing ‘Galileo Figaro’ with dead pan sarcasm. There were a cappella fragments of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ throughout the show, beautiful stand-alone moments in which Galileo suddenly knows a line of it without knowing how or why, and later it is revealed that he is the dreamer to bring live music back to this future world where only computer recordings and mixes exist (on purpose; only one guitar was not destroyed by the government).

      After this, we headed to the hotel down the Tube’s Central line, but our stop turned out to be under construction. Luckily, there were replacement buses to and from White City, and we got to the hotel easily enough. Spacious accommodations greeted us there, I took a nap, and we went to The Real Greek restaurant back in White City, a romantic meal for two, before calling it a good first night together, the first night in so long.