I decided to not try to walk back in to Heathrow. (Although, as it turns out, it is possible.) Instead, I took the four-and-a-half pound shuttle directly to T5.

My flight was delayed so I had a few hours to contemplate the enormity of the place. My experience, partially influenced, I’m sure, by lack of sleep and travel exhaustion, was profound. I looked out from enormous glass fortress of T5B and saw an armada of British Airways planes. I paired up the enormity of everything I was seeing with the knowledge that each of these planes and buildings was filled with tiny people and started thinking about ants.They say that a colony of ants is a superorganism, consisting of many individuals but behaving as one.

(BTW: That’s the last photo from the trip! Here’s the full collection along with a few extra goodies: Portugal, 2015.)