English Politeness (and Venice here I come!)

Hello - I'm writing from London where I was, thankfully, able to spend the night after two extremely long flights yesterday. We circled Heathrow for about half an hour when they waited for a gate for us - excruciating after 11 hours of flying and 3 hours of layover but I finally made it to my hotel and was reminded of the politeness of the English.

I was awakened at 3:30 in the morning to the sound a of fire alarm - only this one was different than anything I had ever heard before. It was a polite English woman's voice saying something to the effect of, "Notice - we've been informed of a potential need to evacuate the building due to a fire alarm. We will investigate and let you know if you should leave the building." This went on for several minutes until the voice came back on saying, "We're sorry for the inconvenience - it was a false alarm. There is no need to evacuate the building." I've never heard of such a thing but I was grateful I didn't need to groggily run into the street in my jammies as I don't think it would have left me in a very good mood for today!

Which reminds me - I'd better get going. I have to take a bus back to Heathrow airport where I will catch a plane to Venice and then a water taxi to Murano. Can't wait! More updates soon.