You step lightly down the steps of the opera house and into the cold, crisp air of London at night.
What a fantastic show! OK, so you didn't understand a single word and the bearded nobleman you were rooting for the whole time turned out to be the bad guy, but hey, who cares? As school raffle prizes go, a weekend in a top West End hotel with an opera ticket thrown in is pretty damned good.
Oh. It seems that the dozen or so seasoned veterans who left the moment that the encores began were not making some kind of critical statement; rather, they were staking their claim to a taxi from the rank outside so they could get home in comfort, unlike you.
Damn! This is going to put back by several minutes tonight's plan to sack the hotel mini-bar of its expensive but paid-for-by-someone-else bottles of fine liqueurs.
You can:
Set off
walking
the half mile to your hotel.
Stand at the taxi rank and
wait
for a black cab to show.
Wander to a main road and try
hail
a passing taxi.
Head for the nearest
underground station
on the off chance you'll find a train not occupied exclusively by scary people.
Decisions, decisions!