Contributed by a traveller
Around 11:00 at night, I was ambushed by 3 overweight people, basically taking over my bench, sitting on my luggage and arguing with me on how they were tired and deserved the bench more than me.
“So I was flying out of Heathrow back to Toronto after 2 months travelling around Europe. My budget was spent, and I had an early morning flight the next day and I didn’t want to look for a hotel/hostel in the city so I decided to spend then night in the airport. The trouble was a last minute trip to Rome at the end of my travels changed my itinerary so instead of 7 hours in the airport (just overnight), I was now faced with 22 hours in the airport. Given that I had no money left at this point to roam around London city waiting until nightfall, I decided to suck it up and spend the whole time in Terminal 3. To top it all off, the BA strike was going on, so benches were at a premium. No worries, I staked out one and basically planted myself there for 10 hours, people watching, and reading. Around 11:00 at night, I was ambushed by 3 overweight people, basically taking over my bench, sitting on my luggage and arguing with me on how they were tired and deserved the bench more than me. I argued with them, other travellers got involved, the bullies started making a ruckus….in the end I gave up my sleeping spot…I was outnumbered, and they were too rude and stubborn. Walking away dejected, a security guard approached me and told me he knew a really quiet place to sleep. He led me to the multi-faith prayer room and told me to stay behind these blinders so no one would know I was there. And there I slept, unbothered, unnoticed in almost complete privacy (save for the people coming in to pray, though I found their hypnotic chants quite soothing!) The next morning, I saw those people who evicted me off my bench…they looked worse for wear, I definitely had a better sleep then they did!!”