Lucky for you for the first time in my life I took a travel journal with me, and actually used it to record my thoughts.  I usually hate journals because there's little purpose to them, but during 2006 I was thinking about writing again (hah!).  In any case this was what I had to say about London Heathrow Airport.

An industrial heap looking airport.  A maze of 
passages, stairs, ramps, lifts, and more.  

Yeah so my short hand is a bit weird, but I was in a rush, the pages small, and my head groggy at not being able to go to sleep (it was 6am in London).  Flying into London in the early morning sunlight, like any early plane trip, is beautiful.  Not the city itself, but the way the sun shines off of the Boeing 777's wing.  Somehow my notes on the Atlantic flight came after the description of London-Heathrow possibly because I slept all the away:

The flight was fine.  Well serviced like an oil
 change you only get when short on time.

Denzel washington stars in another 
negociator/police film like a Grisham novel at
 the airport bookstore.

In random prose I continue:

Waiting to check-in, pita.
watching a screen, black and white, flicker 
hoping for a sign that my airline exists.  
Please wait Please wait Please wait...  4 hours, 
3 hours, 2 1/3 hours, ...

This was odd.  The Sri Lankan Airlines counter was all the way at the end of the check-in area past the crowded snaking lines of British Airways.  There were a throng of people around the counter waiting just like I was for an airline representative to approach the counter.  I'm used to checking in right away, making my way through security, and then sitting/sleeping at the gate for a couple of hours.
On one layover in 2003 after a trip to Japan I was sitting in the Los Angeles airport waiting for my plane to San Francisco for about 6 hours.  I slept for about 45 minutes at a time waking up only occasionally to make sure the flight that was now boarding was not my own.
With this experience I found this counter waiting period annoying at 7 in the morning. I dined at the Cafe Uno - a standard slightly expensive airport cafe.  I needed a quick pick me up in the form of a ham & cheese sandwich.  The coffee was better than United's

The Sri Lankan Air flight was a restless one.  No matter how much I tried to sleep I was either distracted or couldn't sleep despite closing my eyes.  As the flight wore on in delirium my writing progressed into a jumble of incoherent sentences.  At one point I began writing kanji in the dark.

A340-300 2-4-2 seats
video system
excellent menu and costume provides an 
atmosphere to prepare for Sri Lanka.

I cannot sleep.  I don't know whether I should 
try or not.  Maybe the excitement of our flight 
path keeps me awake, or the sunlight coming 
from open windows.

I will fly over [The Caucus region] for the 
first time, or at least I hope I do.  The 
route takes over eastern Europe, the Black Sea, 
Georgia, Armenia (?), Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, 
the Indian Ocean, and India... Pakistan?  
They sell arms to Sri Lanka as the Indian 
government sells to the Tamil?
That's interesting...

...At first glance I did not know what to expect.
  So I read; I still did not really know much.  
Elephants, beaches, w-hat?  After seeing travel 
magazines I'm excited to say that again... 
elephants, peacocks, architecture, costume, God!  
It is the same expectation as I had for the days of
the cherry blossoms that i experienced over and over 
during that 3 week period in March/April.  The same 
feeling of beauty?  We will see.  I'm worried that 
the Monsoon will not have the same effect, and I 
will feel like Kyoto in the early winter... bleak.

I cannot sleep.  Tomorrow is going to suck, but I 
have to do it and get everything done as planned.  

5 HOURS TO GO AND I AM RESTLESS.  NO SLEEP, NOT TIRED.

This pretty much ends the first day of travel.  I'll leave my arrival into Colombo for the second day.