Contrasts

We were struck this afternoon by the contrasts between JFK and LHR.  On arrival two weeks ago at Heathrow, we were met by helpful, smiling faces, who ushered through a clearly exhausted family with small-ish children through the immigration line.  The luggage trolleys were free, and the airport seemed bright and clean.  This morning, the security folks were cheerful, and helpful, and nice.
Arriving at JFK we saw lots of helpful signs about how serious security was, which seemed mainly to serve to highlight how cheerless the staff were: from the unsmiling face looking at our passports, to the barking I received from the scanning staff because I dared put my shoes and computer bag into boxes instead of directly onto the belt: to the drab, whitewashed walls of the tunnels we went through.  And the luggage carts?  Five dollars each to rent! 

Yours, thinking that as far as airports go, the UK came out looking pretty good to us on this trip,
N.