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Published: July 18th 2007
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Phew! Where to even start.
The Flight
The past few days have been quite a hectic blur. After packing our bags and saying goodbye to Sandra´s parents at the airport, we dug ourselves in for what we expected to be a 6-hour ride-of-pain in the Cattle Class section to London. It turns out, however, that Virgin Atlantic is quite a bit better than our very own United Airlines. Not only do they have a full bar on-board, but every seat has its own ¨entertainment¨computer that plays movies, music, games, TV shows, city guides, everything!
Sandra is scoffing at me right now, of course, since having flown to India and back 5 times in business class, she´s used to being pampered this way. For airline peasants such as myself, however, this is quite a new experience...
So after arriving at Heathrow feeling quite refreshed and decidedly more optimistic about the airline industry, we then took a short train ride and met with our gracious host, Sanj. He was good enough not only to let us stay at his place for a few days (not small deal, either, considering how expensive London lodging is), but he personally undertook the
task of hanging out and partying with us all night long every night that we were there. I think we were all ¨knackered¨by the end of it.
Doing the tourist thing
Partying aside, we did our part as dutiful American tourists and saw Big Ben, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square. We ended up in the National Gallery quite by accident avoiding one of London´s famous instant rainstorms, and walked the very green and very royal St. James park. Heck, the only touristy thing we did not do was wear a fanny pack, and we weren´t nearly inebriated enough to do that.
On top of that, some recommendations we would give to any of you future London tourists out there would be: Covent Gardens - a very pleasant market/bar district complete with street performers, arts and crafts, and overpriced steak and kidney pies (speaking of which, we are starting to like certain types of English food...lamb pies, specifically. So be ready for us - we may drag you all to some English pubs for a couple of pints and a few kate and sidneys one of these days). The Trocadero, a large entertainment center in Picadilly Circus in
the center of London´s West End, was also an interesting diversion, mostly little stores selling trinkets, a video arcade big enough for the Asian kid within all of us, and Amora, a museum dedicated to love. Very nice! (read that with a Borat voice)
We´ve also been busy on our ongoing quest to meet every family member that we have. Our latest acquaintance would be Derek´s cousin Tak-Shing, who got on a train in sunny Sheffield and rode for 3 hours (one-way) just to meet and hang out with us. I hadn´t seen my cousin for the past 15 years or so, so this was quite a memorable meeting.
Engrish Placenames
At this point we also have to make a comment about English placenames. We´ve been to Engrish.com and we´ve laughed at many of those strange place names that end up in a humorous twilight zone of English language meaning (e.g. F*cking, Austria; Fat Ho Retirement Center, Hong Kong, etc.). But we never thought we´d see names such as Cockfosters and Shaftesbury in a place as proper as London! Shocked, shocked, we were. We were not amused. Well OK, actually we were very amused, but that´s just the
sort of toilet humor that we sometimes appreciate.
Londoners
One thing we have to say about Londoners - they are an incredibly diverse group of people. It´s absolutely no surprise to see people of any and every race on the streets and in the subway trains. All speaking with a fluent English accent, no less. We have that kind of diversity in the States, of course. But groups still tend to be very segregated. In London, people tend to live side by side, and just because someone looks like they´re Indian, Chinese, or African, in no way means they´re any less native than a WASPy looking guy. Add to this the fact that at least 2 or 3 Londoners would stop what they are doing on a busy street on a workday to help us out when we were lost or confused about something, and we have quite a positive impression of Londoners so far. The fact that they have bravely and quietly taken all of the recent terrorist attacks in their stride is something that we should learn to adopt on our own side of the pond - by contrast I would say that Americans tend to panic
and overreact to any perceived threat to ¨our way of life¨.
The Price of London
London is expensive. There´s no way around it. No matter what you do, where you go, or what you eat, the act of living in the City will cost you over 3 times the price of the same thing back home. Two whoppers at the local Burger King will cost you over $20. A nice sit-down place will cost you over $50 easily, and a 30-minute train ride costs over $55. Yow (or as the Brits would say, Blimey).
So for the moment, those are all the memories and impressions we have so far on our 2-day trip. We´ll clean this up and add pictures as we get around to it (we are on holiday, after all).
We´re in Ibiza right now, so stay tuned...
-Derek and Sandra
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Dan
non-member comment
Goodbye Kitty!!!
LOL