What to do in Gatwick

Our trip all began because of a cheap ticket to London Gatwick Airport. It then continued because of also cheap Inter-EU flights. And so, having set out today, we found ourselves excitedly landing in London, only to look forward to a 6-hour layover. Not even in the main city of London, but in London Gatwick instead.

What were we ever going to do in Gatwick?

Well, first off, we were going to mess up telling customs how long our stay in London was going to be.

    "Hey, what did you put down for 'length of stay'?"
    "Eleven days. We land here today [the 9th], and we go home from here on the 20th."
    "Yeah, but we're travelling so much in between. I only put down 2 days because we're only staying 2 of the eleven days in London."
    "True. Okay, let's tell them 2 days."
    "Welcome to London, ladies, how long are you staying here?"
    "Well, 2 days. We're staying here only on the 18th-20th and we're travelling the rest of the time. We leave for Athens today at 3pm."
    "So that means you ladies are actually here for zero days."
    "Oh, right, it does."

[USA!]


Alright, what next?

Well, after taking a couple of pictures in a place I later discovered I wasn't supposed to (luckily no one noticed), we got directions to the local mall so we could grab some grub and stretch our legs. Over coffee...


...(Americano style) we discussed what to do about our flight to Barcelona that wasn't to Barcelona...

Earlier email from TC:

Are you guys really flying into Girona? Because that's not Bacelona. [...] You're so USA. Maybe you should consult a map next time.

(In our defence, the route READ Barcelona. Why would they call the airport "Barcelona" when it wasn't?)

...and what else to see and don in each city. We ended up spontaneously adding an extra destination to our original list:

• London
• Athens
• [insert Island of Santorini]
• Rome
• Barcelona (we'll get there by bus)
• London

By the time we headed back to Gatwick Airport to check into our next flight, we were exhausted, so the next thing I proceeded to do in Gatwick was spread out on a bench and crash. But, because we didn't know which gate we were departing from yet, we set up camp in the middle of the public atrium and food/shopping concourse. Classy. Even classier was when I kicked both my feet out into an (thankfully empty) aisle in my sleep.

Our final adventure in Gatwick began when SilentR tapped me and darted into the seat next to me as I bolted awake.

    "Hey, do you know who Tilda Swinton is?"
    "Yeah."
    "She's over there!"

I looked across the crowds of people towards the direction Silent had pointed. My eyes fell on a red-haired lady in a cosmetic store, but my view was quickly obstructed by a silver-haired man walking by. As I tried to crane around him, I checked with Silent.

    "Is she in the store?"
    "No, she's there!"

I followed Silent's direction this time to discover she was pointing at the silver-haired man, now disappearing towards the gates and airport lounges.

    "Oh! Cool!"
    "Yeah!"
    *pause*
    "Wanna follow her?"
    "Sure!"

And so, we did. As we twisted and turned our ways down what turned out to be a really long hallway that was probably fairly restricted access, we discussed what we'd say and do if we managed to catch up to her. But our pursuit turned out to be to no avail.

However, our paparazzi stalking turned out to have kept us busy just long enough so that by the time we wound our way back to the main atrium, they'd finally posted our gate information and we had just enough time to leisurely stroll on over to our boarding area.

So, what was there to do in Gatwick? Enough, apparently.