London - Day 1

Day 1

We arrive early - helped by a significant tail wind (that you can see change speed on the 'flight status' app in the entertainment system of your seat).  How did people ever survive long flights before these modern miracles of TV and movies and games accessible from every seat? The mind boggles - guess we read paper books and slept more.  And played with our hand-held gaming devices.

Our 5:45ish arrival in London necessitated circling the airport for 15 minutes 'cuz you can't land a jet in London before 6AM.  They are very sensitive towards noise abatement in the wee hours of the morning.  I passed the time taking pictures of the plane on the flight status going round and round.  The plane icon stayed in the same place - just nose down; nose left; nose up; nose right...over and over.  Finally, we land.

We get through customs much more quickly than ever before in our travels - guess arriving at the crack of dawn has something to do with that - and we go to find our luggage and our driver.  The driver is a little late but he locates us and we head to our hotel.  He is from Somalia - very nice young man.  J. tries to converse with him but he doesn't answer - and I am glad and fine with that 'cuz I'd rather the driver concentrate on driving.  It is a little disorienting to be on the wrong side of the street - but what was hardest for me was him being on the wrong side of the car.  The driver on the right?  Blew my mind way more than driving in the wrong direction.

Our hotel is a Holiday Inn and it's nice - and busy.  We get there just after 8AM and they don't have a room for us.  They suggest checking back at noon.  I hadn't slept a wink on the plane and J. had slept a teeny bit.  I was exhausted - but we decided to head out to Kensington Park to locate the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

We walk a long, long way - and I had on the wrong shoes and socks for a long walk.  By the time we got to the park, my foot had a huge, sore blister on it.  Every step was painful.  We trudged on - finally (FINALLY) found the fountain - which didn't open until 10AM.  AND was running with only a portion of the water due to 'ground water testing'.  A little disappointing since it was designed to encourage folks to dip their feet in - Diana most certainly would have - but oh well.  It's cold and overcast and fenced off and we had no illusions of hanging out until 10.  We checked 'see Diana fountain' off our list and started to head back towards the hotel.

Thankfully, J. realized I needed a cab - but we couldn't get one to pull over for us.  We were on a very busy street and in their defense, there wasn't much of a place for them to pull over. We finally walk a ways and there's a slight 'turn out' lane and a very nice cab pulls over - the nicest, British cabbie ever.  He can't wait to hear what J. thinks of the place (and is very quick to say 'I want to hear what he thinks 'cuz he's never been here before, ma'am').  He was so nice and gave us good advice re: keeping our back packs close to us at all times.

We get back to the hotel in time to see them check-in a massive group of flight crew from an airline....and behold - our room is ready.  We head upstairs and get settled in one of the smallest hotel rooms I've ever been in.  So small we couldn't open our suitcases and leave them out anywhere.  We extract some clothes for the few days we'll be here - most importantly for me, different shoes and socks.  J. makes me fall in love with him all over again when he says 'I could really use some sleep'...and we proceed to take the best four hour deep sleep nap ever.  Awaken refreshed and ready to go again.

We explore the neighborhood we are in and find a local pub for some food.  It's still early so they aren't serving their full dinner menu but they have fish and chips on their early menu so we are good! The owner was very nice and let us sample a lot of different ales.  It was a delicious meal.

We head back to the hotel and are asleep pretty early.