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Published: June 11th 2006
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London
The first stop on my summer tour was London, a city that I've only previously visited for a 20 hour stopover on my first European backpacking trip seven years ago and also a city that I have inklings to try living in at some point. Having lived in New York for two years, I am typically not one to experience sticker shock, but London brings a new level to expensive! Before I even left the airport, I had spent 27 pounds (about $55) for a 15 minute ride each way, round trip ticket on the Heathrow Express. Soon after I found out that I for a lot less I could have taken the tube, which I had to take anyway when I got to the city. I came to the conclusion that in order to not go crazy worrying about the brutal exchange rate, that I need to just think of one pound being roughly equal to a dollar, at least in terms of determining if things were relatively expensive. This generally worked in bars and restaurants, where beers might be 4 pounds and entrees at a nice place could be in the 20s. The subway seems to be
Neal's Yard Dairy
Stopping for cheese here almost made me miss my flight an exception, where a one way ride costs 3 lbs, compared to a $2 on the New York. The bottom line is that after four days in London, even with the generous accomodations provided by my friend, Tim, I was well over budget (this is a theme that seems to continue throughout the trip even in the less expensive cities).
It looks like my "training" over the last two years flying back and forth between east coast time and west coast time and quickly adjusting to new time zone paid dividends even with the six hour time difference. After sleeping most of the flight, another skill that I've mastered over the past two years of travel (ok, I admit, I've never really had much trouble falling asleep anywhere, baseball stadiums included), I managed to rally after a two hour afternoon nap. From there on out, I was pretty much on London time.
As an outsider, there were many things that stood out to me as I observed London life. It is abundantly clear to me that the weather is usually quite miserable. What appeared to be a nice, early summer, sunny day with the temperature around 70 degrees
Catching up with friends
With Annmaree at Dan's apartment farenheit, may turn out to be the nicest day of the year. Everyone seemed to be outside and discussions were buzzing about the "great" weather. To give you a flavor, someone mentioned that a couple months ago that he woke up and was shocked to see a blue sky above. Yes, a rare occurrence. I thought it was interesting that people were flowing out of pubs and just standing in the street having drinks. That made me wonder why even bother buying beer from the bars if you are just going to stand out in the street.
Another aspect of London life that you can't miss is the wealth that you see all around, most prominently in the form of expensive sports cars and sedans. I've never seen so many Bentleys, Ferraris, Porsches and BMWs outside of the dealership in such a short period of time. You would see "everyday driving" Porsches sitting parked out on the road and completely covered with bird droppings. Apparently the good parking is saved for the owner's nicer cars.
The funny thing about my long weekend on London was that I pretty much did exactly what I may have done in San
Francisco. For the most part, I was out meeting up with different friends who live in the city, going out to brunches and dinners and going out to bars and lounges at night. On Saturday, we had brunch at a place called Chair in Notting Hill. The place was a furniture store combined with a restaurant, where all the tables and chairs were different and on display for sale. There was even a full bar. Sunday we came back to Notting Hill again to eat at Churchhill Arms, an old English pub, decorated with old WW2 paraphanalia. Somewhat strangely, a Thai restaurant, covered with a canope of greenery is attached.
Nightlife in London is vibrant, with the full range of neighorhood pubs, some of the top dance clubs in the world, and the exclusive lounges. London takes that exclusivity one step further in that many of the lounges are members only. I believe that membership is open to anyone who is will to pay from hundreds of pounds per year up to thousands. Perhaps some memberships are even invitation only. I would think that a system like that might restrict their ability to bring in more customers and make
Taxi driver in training
London taxi drivers need to take a test before they can get their license more money, but apparently the set up seems to be working well. As we witnessed ourselves, on Saturday night at one of the most trendy lounges, Boujie, the door person has some discretion on non-members. Luckily we made it in, and we had a great time. The British girls, who were not allowed in earlier in the evening, that Tim and I met and brought with us mentioned that there was royalty there in the lounge.
Aside from eating and drinking, the one true tourist thing that I did was to visit the Tate Modern, which has reopened in an old power station. Although I was cutting it close on time for my flight, I decided to make a quick trip over to Neal's Yard Dairy, which been deemed one of the top cheese stores in the world by food writers. I can't say that it is as good as my beloved Murray's in New York, but it does has an impressive selection.
Grabbing the cheese almost led me to miss my flight (hey, gotta prioritize). Throughout the weekend, my friends marveled that I had not run into any shutdowns or delays. Problems are so frequent that they will make announcements just to say that all running, which apparently happens rarely. Unforunately my first tube issue occurred when I least needed it. I rushed to the stop near Tim's office, where I had to pick up my bag, only to find that it closed. I had to hop on a bus to the next stop over. I made it to Paddinton station to catch the Heathrow Express and saw it pulling away from the station as I walked in. The next one, leaving in 15 minutes, got me to the airport less than 50 minutes before my flight. Dripping sweat and super stressed out, I was able to check in my bag with less than 40 minutes before takeoff. Thank goodness for my Platinum status on American. With that whole adventure of getting to the airport on time behind me, I enjoyed my newly acquired cheese on the flight over to Budapest.
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Mark Steele
non-member comment
Sweet
Sounds like you are having a good time!