Stewart: Angst, Part 1

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I'm a little surprised to find that I'm uneasy (a bit frightened really). I feel all alone (family doesn't count) in a big, strange city where the residents don't speak our language. We have no food in the house. It's Shabbat, so the stores are closed. It's really disconcerting. I'm sure things will work out--I'll get more familiar as we stay here longer. But right now, 11 months sounds awfully long. (Didn't we say we'd have a harder time than Kate?)

That said, Haifa really is a beautiful city. Very hilly--we're told no one bikes here. The apartment is large by the Jerusalem standards we're used to. We have a pleasant, grassy backyard with a southern exposure.

On the flight over, we had an 11 hour layover, so we opted to leave Heathrow for a quick tour of London. Exhausted from the time change and the 10 hour flight, all of us were testy. Nevertheless, we took the tube downtown and just walked around the city. What a great idea! Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Whitehall, Trafalger Square, Picadilly Circus. Wow. London makes Seattle look like Tacoma (or Yelm).

One of our goals for this trip was to eat at an Indian restaurant in London, which is reputed to have the best Indian food in the world. We wimped out. There were so many Indian restaurants and they were so expensive that we were paralyzed. Which to choose? And what if we picked the wrong one? In the end, we settled on a local sandwich shop in Picadilly circus for a small snack, which still set us back over $30. Maybe we'll have better luck when we return to London with Kate next summer.

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