Heathrow

I'm back in the US now.  What can I say about my journey back?  Well for starters, I'm really starting to dislike travelling through Heathrow.  It's such an impersonal experience because, clearly in an attempt to eliminate jobs, you hardly interact with anyone.  You check in online.  You arrive at the terminal to be greeted by these giant automated cleaning machines (like roombas on steroids, the kind of machines that will hunt you down when they inevitably become sentient).   You print your boarding pass from a check in machine (something which I've had loads of problems with it not being able to read my passport in the past, but fortunately not this time).  You queue up for bag drop, which is also a machine where you have to print and put on your own checked bag tags.  But I found a major flaw with this.  I didn't get an upgrade this time (no surprise, given the lack of human interaction and a not very full flight), but I am a bronze executive club member (hopefully not too far away from being a sliver member, which entitles me to a lot more perks - including access to the airport lounge).  Bronze privileges include being able to use the business class check in (but apparently not business bag drop, which would be a lot more beneficial - apparently there is a separate check-in area I could've used, but I didn't know this) and supposedly priority baggage arrival (I had priority labels on my luggage flying into London).  But I never got a chance to print these on this journey.  And hence I went from my luggage supposed to be one of the first to come off the airplane, to my luggage literally being the last bags to come onto the carousel in Seattle.  And I was starting to really panic that my luggage had been lost, and then I feared I'd be stuck at the end of the massive security queues (because, for inexplicable reasons, you have to pick up all your luggage now in Seattle before you go through security).  But the wait wasn't long this time because they shockingly actually had loads of people manning the security desks, which they didn't the last time I came through here.  What is also disconcerting in Heathrow is that you're supposed to get a thorough check of your documentation before dropping your bags off - but the one stressed out employee dealing with everyone gave only a cursory look.  I could easily see people arriving in the US and not being able to get in.  As for the flight itself, I feared the worst - the boarding process was shambolic (not done by groups, and you had to take a bus from the gate to the airplane and then climb the stairs to enter it - where you were exposed to the wet and windy weather).  And then I get to my seat and find it occupied.  But that actually worked out - I took the woman's seat instead (which was the same row as mine but the opposite side of the plane) and because there were loads of spaces on the flight, I was able to nab a window seat nearby with nobody next to me.  So that's about as good as you're going to get without an upgrade to business class.  Despite the windy weather, the flight departure wasn't delayed by much and wasn't as rocky as I feared it might be.  But despite all this, I still didn't get much sleep on the flight.  So I'm back now and once again it will probably take my body clock a while to readjust back to my routine here.