Innocent Bystander

London Journal 8: Elementary, my dear Watson!

So...what did I deduce from my trip to London? Well, a number of things, my dear Watson...

• Travel is really, really easy, even half-way around the world. All you have to do is book it online and show up. Providing you can do both those things, it pretty much occurs around you. You become (ahem) an innocent bystander, swept along by the sheer momentum of schedules, airplanes, tube trains and hotel desk clerks.

• Increasingly, my vacations are becoming photo expeditions. Part of this lies in having an extra creative outlet, one that is no muss/no fuss, and part of it is having an excellent, intuitive camera. I love my Canon PowerShot SD450. It's a wonderful way to commemorate a vacation, and the size and ease of the camera itself make me feel that I'm NOT a slave to it, having to utilize it at each and every turn. Between London and my book-end visits to New York City on either side of the UK part of the trip, I took 1180 pictures. Of those, I posted 450 on Flickr (hit the animated badge at the top of the sidebar on the right to see all my posted photos, from both this trip and others).

• I am categorically NOT a "foodie," and I'm sure there are places in London where you could find food that would be very good and even world-class, but for the most part, I ate in the hotel. My best food was with room service, which I found to be incredibly fast and good. I had salmon my first night (the best meal I had), a sandwich and salad the second, and pasta and a salad the fourth night. Never did I wait more than 15 minutes to be served, a marked difference with room service in the States, and almost the single reason why I never do it in a US hotel.

• In London, the Underground is your friend. I've never encountered a mass transit system more easy to navigate. Great--near perfect--signage, lucid, clearly understandable announcements and updated info on trains coming and where they are, the tube is a wonder of modern mass conveyance. It'll take you pretty much anywhere you want to go in London. I recommend buying the 7-day TravelCard for about 27 pounds (they're called "Oyster"). I used it profusely. One tip: Keep it handy. You not only use it to get into the station to catch a train, you need to "touch out" when you leave.

• They really do say things like "cheers," "governor," and "cheeky monkey." I heard each and every one of them. If the woman who I heard say "why, you cheeky monkey!" had said it directly to me, I would have proposed on the spot.

• The monetary system can be considered two different ways: You can constantly compare the pound to the dollar and realize you're spending twice as much on everything than you would here, and thus drive yourself fucking nuts, or you can look at it as 10 pounds is 10 pounds. If you do the latter, things don't seem so unreasonable and you'll have a much better time. Trust me. (Although $35.00 for a movie--even one with Jack Nicholson--is a bit pricey, under any country's currency.)

• Women dress better over there, at least by my observations. Or maybe more appealingly to me, personally. I've never seen so many skirts, tights and boots in my life.

• I watched very little television, pretty much just the BBC news, which is so...sedate...compared to local news in this country, so polite and refined, I almost expected them to break out afternoon tea and finger sandwiches each time I watched. Great graphics and sets though, especially the weather maps, and they're broadcasting in high-def. The big stories while I was there was politician Jack Straw's (he who may be Prime Minister after Blair steps down) saying all Muslim women in Britain should remove their veils (ostensibly because he has a large Muslim constituency and he can't hear a damn word they're saying) and that Britain is the fattest of the European nations, with 23% of the population being overweight. One of the SKY-TV news shows interviewed an incredibly articulate Muslim woman--who was veil-less--who endured a long "cheeky monkey" questioning by a clueless female news reader. At one point the Muslim woman said she felt British women show too much skin, to which the shocked host replied she didn't think anyone would complain about that! (Here's a pound note, luvvie...go buy yerself a clew!)

• As counterpoint to the BBC news, I watched a chat show, also on the Beeb, The Bigger Picture with Graham Norton, who I believe had a show for a brief period of time on Comedy Central a few years back. His guests that night were Dustin Hoffman, "national treasure" Joanna Lumley and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Unlike US shows, all the guests were already on stage when it started and all three interacted with each other and the host. The biggest surprise to me was that Lloyd Webber has five--FIVE!--kids, which is pretty impressive for a man I always thought was just another gay Englishman. The show veered from chat and promos (like American talk shows) to comedy bits that involved Photoshopped images, including West End theatre parodies, like a Muslim Wizard of Oz, a take-off on Cats called "Twats," and some political humor along the lines of Jack Straw's newsmaking and pics of him in a very tiny Speedo (NOT Photoshopped, I'm guessing). It was a fascinating 40 minutes of so...British TV shows seem to run at different lengths, and there's very few commercials, none on the BBC, in fact, except for promos for their other shows and networks. I saw a very interesting one on a new science fiction show called Torchwood, which I hope will show up some day on SCI FI.

• London is an extremely hectic town, like New York and San Francisco, and I know I couldn't live there, but it's a mighty nice place to visit.

• I'm going back someday, so if I learn anything else, I'll let you know then. In the meantime, I think we're done with London and my vacation. You can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

London Journal 7: Stick a fork in me...

Wednesday, October 11 was a bit of a rainy day. But that was okay. I had a minimum of outside activity planned. It was basically get up, get out and go to the airport.

My flight on British Airways was scheduled to leave at 2:35pm from Heathrow's Terminal 4. I already had my ticket for the Heathrow Express. My bag was packed. Breakfast was eaten and I checked out and headed to the Underground around 10:30 or so. I'm glad I left early. Heathrow's security line was long and took about 45 minutes to navigate.

Beyond security was the bizarre world of duty-free shopping. Heathrow's Terminal 4 contains a myriad of high-end shops, everything from numerous Harrods outposts to make-up and perfume to a caviar bar, from Agent Provocateur lingerie to a Borders. Having never flown overseas before, this was a new and exotic world to me, but also one that had little appeal (okay...the lingerie and the books, MAYBE). But if you do find yourself flying out of Heathrow back to the states, be assured there's plenty to do and look at--maybe even buy, if you're one of those rich readers--once you get there.

The plane was late, but relatively empty. Again, no screaming babies or kids and the seat next to me was free. I whiled away the almost 8-hour flight by watching TV (the movie The Break-Up, go here for my review) and taking the occasional flash-less picture. (There's only eight pics to my Wednesday photo set. Click here to see 'em.)

The plane landed late in Newark to torrential rain and the eventual news about the plane crash in midtown Manhattan that tied up the island for hours. For more on that, go back to London Journal 1, but please don't get caught in this vicious circle of reading, otherwise you'll go through all six parts and start all over again, caught in a perpetual motion machine of reading from which you'll never escape.

London Journal Extra: Too much information...

I don't know about you, but I found the airline's instructional information on what was not allowed on the plane, illustrated on the back of the boarding pass, a little ... harsh.

London Journal 6: What is The 39 Steps?

Tuesday, Oct. 10 was my last full day in London, and one of the first ones I had concrete plans for. On Saturday, I had gone and purchased a ticket for the play, The 39 Steps, at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. Tuesday is matinee day there, and I had gotten a great seat--dress circle, first row, center--for only 25 pounds (which, even with the dollar/pound difference, is a great price for any play), through Time Out London magazine. But more on that later.

Tuesday started with a trip to Covent Garden, which, according to my guidebooks, sounded fascinating. Truth be told, it was a bit dissapointing. A beautiful old building, surrounded by many other beautiful old buildings in a lovely part of central London, I'm sure it hustles and bustles come the weekend, but on a Tuesday--blah. It was just a glorified flea market. Still, the area around CG was great, with windy little cobblestone streets and wonderful shops, including one devoted to the European comics character Tintin, who has a huge following worldwide and the best travel bookstore I've even seen, Stanfords. Covent Garden is also smack dab right up against London's theatre district, so I roamed around there, taking numerous pictures. And again--like I have to tell you this by now--my pictures tell the story far better than my feeble words. Click here to see them!

The highlight of the day, though, was The 39 Steps. This strange little adaptation of both the John Buchan novel and the Alfred Hitchcock film has only four actors who play, for the most part, numerous parts. Lead Charles Edwards plays the hero, Richard Hannay, and he's the only one of the four players to play only one role, but then again, he's on stage for almost the play's entirety. Catherine McCormack plays three parts and Rupert Degas and Simon Gregor--the real stars of the show, with their Monty Python-esque talents and abilities--are each simply billed as "clown." These two actors play an incredible cast of characters, from the bad guy and his wife to two salesmen traveling by train to numerous coppers hot on the trail of the fleeing Hannay.

For those that don't know, The 39 Steps is classic Hitchcock: A man wrongly accused of someone's murder, running for his life and embroiled in a plot that is deep and dark and twisty and ultimately pointless. The MacGuffin, that classic Hitchcockian plot point that the story revolves around, is, quite simply, the answer to the question that seems to be bad English: What is The 39 Steps? Hannay's story takes him from London via train to the moors of Scotland and back to the theatre district of London again. All of this on a stage set with next to no props or set pieces.

The 39 Steps is the most imaginatively staged play I've ever seen. Operating on full throttle with only four actors, the staging employs free-standing doors and handheld window frames, an occasional chair or two, a bed, two of the theater's boxes, some finger puppet shadows projected large and scary on the stage's back wall, a toy train, and a set of steamer trunks. It's also one of the funniest plays I've ever seen, rooted in the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, we know what we're doing and we know you know we know philosophy of presentation. The actors have so much fun on stage, the audience can't help but join them. I was literally crying at points, it was so funny. All four leads are wonderful (McCormack appropriately leggy and sexy in a scene from the movie that is a personal fave and always erotically charged, even for a movie made in 1934), and the play clips right along at breakneck speed with music and visual cues that were never missed by either the actors or the crew. If you're in London between now and January, go see this. It's absolutely incredible.

The other great thing about this play was the wonderful old theater it was in. (Click here to see some photos from inside.) The Criterion was built in the 1870s, and during World War II it was taken over by the BBC due to its safe from bombing location far below ground. In the 1970s, there was real fear of the area being redeveloped, but prominent British actors and theatrical people saved it. It shut down for a time in the early 90s while the block around it was rebulit, but it's thrived since then. It's a wonderful old theater, breath-taking in its Victorian beauty but still intimate and charming. The theater alone is worth the price of admission, believe me.

When I left the theater around 5:00pm or so, I didn't want to go back to the hotel, but the crowds in Piccadilly Circus soon made me feel otherwise. Reluctantly, I headed back, knowing all that was left was the packing and a long plane ride back to New York on Wednesday.

London Journal 5: Where's Hugh Grant when you really need him?

Monday in London saw me venture out farther than I'd gone before. This time I went "all the way" to Notting Hill, which was still less than a 20-minute ride on the tube, even with a train change. As I mentioned before, London is a very compact city.

But before I even got on the train, my day was made. I was walking the short distance from my hotel to the Underground station and turned a blind corner and almost ran into a portly Englishman, who loudly exclaimed, "Morning, Guv!" I had arrived.

I've been curious about Notting Hill, and more specifically, Portobello Road, since seeing the Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts movie of the same name numerous times over the past few years. I was originally going to go there on Saturday, but I was turned off by the thought of so many people packed into a flea market type atmosphere of stalls in the street. So instead, I opted for Monday, a time when very few of the stalls, just those devoted to produce and flowers, were open.

Notting Hill is a strange little community. I want to compare it to New York's Village, but it's not like that, really, although it may resemble it in tone: Funky, arts-oriented, musically inclined. The streets are narrow and twisty, and there's many houses, those cool little two-story ones with a garage on the ground floor, all tucked in next to each other in rows. A short walk, literally a left or right turn before you get to the main shopping area on Portobello Road, brings you to many impressive residential buildings. But Portobello ambles on, funky and free in its own fashion, lined with food stores, antique shops, and even a Woolworths! Again, this is a story best told in pictures, so click here to see what I snapped.

I didn't buy anything in Notting Hill, although I was tempted in the tin sign store (see photos). I looked through a few stores, stayed out of the antique ones (they looked horribly pricey) and just generally roamed up and down the street taking pictures. I would like to see it, fully packed and loaded, on a Saturday, but not when that Saturday is my first full day in London. Now that I know the lay of the land a bit better, maybe I'll make a mental note of that for when I go back.

I also roamed around the Notting Hill Gate neighborhood a bit, right around the Underground station. There were a number of bookstores there, including a Waterstone's and a used bookstore that had a lot of comics stuff, none of it priced in such a way that I could get it cheaper than here in the States. Again, I was dissapointed in the fact that there seems to be so little British comics material available. After Notting Hill Gate, I got off the tube on Oxford Street and roamed around the big Borders there and had lunch in a nice little park off the main drag. Then it was back to the hotel and a great sunset, viewed through my window, and back out and down to Hays Galleria to snap a few more photos. It was a cloud-filled sunset, but impressive nonetheless.

London Journal 4: Sunday Along the Thames...

Sunday dawned to picture-perfect weather in London, and I carped the diem. I grabbed my camera and started a close to 6-hour walk, which led me from the Tower Bridge, just east of my hotel, across the Thames down to the Millennium Bridge, across the Thames again, and down to the London Eye (which one London visitor I know called the London "Eye-sore"). It was an incredible day, just a hint of chilliness in the air, making it feel perfectly Fall-ish and clouds that had to have followed me all the way from San Diego, dramatic and beautiful in their amazing white puffy-ness. It's a tale best told in pictures, so click here to see them. I took 360 photos on that one day alone. Don't worry, there's only about 180 of them posted on Flickr, but there are two sets. In addition to the one linked above, there's also a separate Tower Bridge set.

My favorite moment of the day occured when I was walking across the beautiful Millennium Bridge. This boat (at left) passed under it, and I heard the ongoing commentary by the guide on it. The Millennium Bridge runs directly from St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern art museum on Bankside, the southern side of the Thames. The guide was telling his passengers how the Tate was to the right, and quite frankly, how it was "a load of rubbish." "I had a day off a few weeks ago, and I took my kids there. We walked into a room that was filled with bricks from an old building. And they called it art! Needless to say, my children were quite disappointed in me." Now imagine that tale being told through a loudspeaker with the traditional English accent we've come to know and love. I'm sure they could hear it in the area around the Tate. (Truth be told, my plan was to have lunch in one the Tate's restaurants, but the place was so crowded--including HUGE lines for the bathrooms, both male and female--that I high-tailed it out of there.)

The walk along the south side of the Thames, along what is known as Bankside, was much more pleasant than the city side. The walkway on that side sometimes cuts around buildings and into tunnels in a scary way, and it was nowhere near as well populated as the south side. I came across a number of very cool things on Bankside. The National Film Theatre for one, and in front of it, under the Southwark Bridge, a used book sale. And the London Eye is really impressive, even if it is just a glorified ferris wheel. And there was another Foyles bookstore over there, too. Very small, compared to its Charing Cross parent, but still a nice little shop.

I took a slow walk back to my hotel, and after a quick nap--hey, Sunday's are MADE for napping, no matter where you are in the world--I headed back out to try and catch some sunset snaps of the Tower Bridge. Walking under the Bridge and east from it, I discovered Shad Thames, a very cool development with high condo and office buildings and cool walkways vaulting across the narrow alley in between. I pretty much missed the sunset, but I got some great nighttime shots of the Tower Bridge.

London Journal Extra: The Tower Bridge...

By far, Sunday in London was the day I took the most photos. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with dramatic clouds on a sharp blue sky. I spent the day walking, too. From Tower Bridge to the east all the way down to the London Eye in the west.

In going though the photos for that day--360 of them!--I realized I had at least one subset, and here it is: The Tower Bridge. A London icon, I was shocked at how many pics I took of, on or around the Bridge. Here's 50 or so of them, a tad obsessive, to be sure, but when you see that sky and how great everything looked through the viewfinder, you'll see why I did what I did when I did it. And it photographed great at night, too.

Not many captions on this set...how many times can I tell you it's the damn Tower Bridge? Click here to see the Tower Bridge (See? There I go again!) photo set.

London Journal 3: At loose in London...

Saturday, Oct. 7 dawned a bright, sunny day, with clear blue skies that made me feel I was back in San Diego. But I wasn't...clearly, I wasn't.

I got up and out early. Breakfast in the hotel was part of the room deal, so I went downstairs to the basement and the Londonium restaurant, where it was served daily. My room rate included the classic "full English breakfast," which, quite frankly, made me queasy just to look at it. I'm not a big breakfast person, so I was totally satisfied with just orange juice, toast and a croissant each day, but there's no way I could do the eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, and--bewilderingly--Heinz baked beans at 8:00am (which was really midnight to my time-confused body). Baked beans...for breakfast? That will add a toot-toot-toot to your morning. The restaurant was lovely, though, and staffed by more of the young Russian women I saw cleaning the rooms upstairs. They were all dressed in starched blue-gray tunics with black pants, and the minute your plate was empty or set aside, they swooped in and snatched it up.

I had decided early on that I was going to go to Notting Hill and Portobello Road on Saturday, to see it in it's full glory, crowded with antique stalls, but in the end, I chickened out. Ultimately, Notting Hill was the farthest journey I'd take in London via the tube, and it seemed a little out of reach of my mindset on that first full day, so I opted to go to the city's bookstore district, Charing Cross Road, to do my favorite thing of all: browse for books.

I had set a limit for myself, though: I vowed I wouldn't buy any books that I could buy in the States. First off, I'd be paying almost twice what I'd pay here and secondly, I'd have to lug 'em all back. I ended up buying ONE book the entire time I was there, a remarkable show of restraint for me, especially considering the Brits are ahead of us on some books. Some of the books that had just been released here were already in paperback over there. And some of the books I already own or want to own have much nicer cover designs than here. So the temptation was great.

The temptation was also great when it came to my other current passion, DVDs. Unfortunately, British DVDs are coded differently than American ones, and are unplayable in our machines. Theirs are Region 2, ours are Region 1. So, short of buying a DVD player while there, nothing they had could be of any use to me. This was both a blessing and a major frustration.

My first stop on Saturday was Piccadilly Circus. I had read in Time Out London, the city's "bible" for events, that a play version of The 39 Steps, one of my favorite early films by Alfred Hitchcock, was at the Criterion. What's more, Time Out was offering a special deal: Mention the mag and get the "best seat available" for 25 pounds. So I did, and got Dress Circle, first row, center seat, for the Tuesday matinee (normally a 40-pound seat). More on that when we get to Tuesday, which for you, dear reader, must seem like a fucking eternity away.

After getting my ticket (and teaching the ticket seller what exactly the special Time Out offer was), I spent a good deal of time getting my bearings on the streets around Piccadilly Circus and finding my way to Trafalgar Square. From there, I thought it was a short hop, skip and/or jump to Charing Cross Road, but that was a little more complicated. I eventually came across Trafalgar--it's hard to miss--and was impressed with the size of the statue in the middle of it. From there I eventually found Charing Cross and started my long roam up it. This is a tale best told in pictures, so if you want to go look at the pics, now's your chance. Click here for my pictures from London on Saturday, October 7.

Charing Cross does have a lot of bookstores on it, but in my estimation there's only one worth visting. I did visit two Borders in London, and both were nice, especially the four-story one on Oxford Street. But Foyles on Charing Cross is one of the best new bookstores I've ever been in (new meaning they don't sell used books--that distinction belongs to The Strand in New York). Four floors of sheer bliss, and just about ANY book you can think of. Some of the guidebooks I read said this store was horribly disorganized, but they were wrong. A recent remodel made it one of the easiest stores to navigate that I've ever been in, with clean, well-signed shelves and big sections on many topics (graphic novels was right up front, and huge, inside the main entrance). It was here I bought my one book, a British book that will probably never be released in the US, James Bond The Man and His World, The Official Companion to Ian Fleming and His Creation. It's devoted to Fleming and the books, NOT the movies.

I visited a few comics shops in this long bookstore trek, too, and found them all pretty much disappointing. Forbidden Planet was the best, with a great meandering basement filled with comics, graphic novels, and science fiction and fantasy books. I bought one thing there. Comicana and Orbit were both a bit rundown and drab and seemed more focused on American import stuff (as was FP, to be honest). I guess there is no thriving British comics industry anymore.

From there I roamed back down Charing Cross and got sidelined a few times on picturesque side streets, some of them quite lovely (again, check out the pics linked above). I stumbled--quite literally--upon Leicester Square and the big Odeon theatre there, and decided to go see The Departed, the new Martin Scorsese movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. The Odeon takes movies very seriously (there tagline is "Fanatic About Film") and the seats were reserved. You picked your seat, and came back at an appointed time for the doors to open. And, they had ushers that actually USHED. The concession stands were divided into two: Salty/Sweet, for snacks, and a bar for drinks. The seats were posh, the theatre beautiful and clean. Unfortunately, the British believe in commercials before their films, too, but the ones they showed were spectacular. A longish one for something featuring Gary Oldman explaining what a great film entails. Another one with a surfing car. And a Smirnoff Vodka one with a woman secret agent who each time she was caught, shed her skin like a nesting doll and became smaller and smaller. I didn't see hardly any commercials on television while there. I guess they're all in the movie theatres. (More on The Departed here.) Suffice it to say that at 17 pounds 50, it was the most expensive movie I ever saw, reserved, posh red seat or not. (That's about $35.00 American.)

While waiting for the movie, I also stumbled upon Chinatown, near Leicester Square. (Again...pictures! How many times do I have to tell you? I took pics of the bathroom in my hotel room...don't you think I took pics of EVERYTHING else?) It was quaint, to say the least, and packed with people. After the movie it was getting dark, and both Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus were also packed with people. London is a very small city, its streets and sidewalks fill up easily. It was time to take my old bones back to the hotel and rest up for Sunday's outing.

London Journal 2: London Calling...

My first-ever flight out of the United States left Newark Liberty Airport about 45 minutes late on Thursday night, Oct. 5. I was flying British Airways for the first time, on one of their giant Boeing 777s.

It seems to me, these days, that red-eyes are more crowded than earlier flights. I flew back to the States on Wednesday, Oct. 11, leaving at 2:30pm, and my part of the cabin was relatively empty. I guess people figure if they're going to spend 7 or 8 hours in the air, they might as well sleep through it. And it does make sense. Why pay for a flight AND a hotel room when you can combine the two, right?

We landed relatively on time at Heathrow on Friday morning at 9:15am. I quickly collected my bag and passed through customs just as quickly. I soon found myself on a sleek, streamlined train, the Heathrow Express, that whisked me into Paddington Station in about 15 minutes. Now this was the part I was apprehensive about: Going from Paddington to my hotel across the Thames via the Underground.

To be honest, London could not be easier to get around. The tube station was footsteps away from the train. I quickly found the Bakerloo line which took me to Waterloo station, where I changed to the Jubilee line which took me right to my hotel, at London Bridge station. The Underground could not be easier to navigate. Subway systems around the world, especially New York's should take a lesson from the London system. In New York, you need to know "the code" to figure out which numerical or lettered train takes you where. The London Underground system has names for each line and each car has maps in plain view that shows you exactly where you are and where you're going. In addition, a teletype below the map regularly reads where you are and what station is next. London is a fairly compact city, so all the stations are very close to each other. And finally, when you reach a station, a lovely voice tells you where you are, what trains you can change to here, and what the next stop is. Most importantly, that voice is CLEARLY UNDERSTANDABLE, something that the New York subway system fails at miserably. It sounds like every subway worker who turns on a mic in New York has a sock in his or her mouth.

In addition, the London tube stations were also easy to get around, clean and with their own certain level of charm. Simple, easy to understand signage is the key to any easy transit through any kind of station or airport, and the signage in the tube stations is exemplary, well-designed and placed perfectly. Very long escalators take you to and from the levels far below the ground, and some of the trains run on levels above and below each other. Advertising is at a minimum. Teletype signs on the platforms tell you exactly how far off--in minutes--the next train is, and what that train is. London has gotten this Underground thing down in ways no one else has, and yet it would be simple--if costly--to correct in places like New York City.

But here's the trade-off. Once you get above ground, London is a confusing maze of streets. The word grid never entered their mind, and probably wasn't even an actual word when London was built. I spent more time finding my hotel than I did riding to it, even though it was literally steps away from the London Bridge station. In fact, it took me until Monday--3 days!--to figure out that if I left the station and went left-left-left, there it was.

It rained the first day I got there, but luckily it was the only substantial rain I experienced over six days. I checked into the hotel immediately and what a lovely hotel it is. If anyone is going to London and is uncertain as to where to stay, I can thoroughly recommend the London Bridge Hotel. Located just across the Thames from the City of London via London Bridge, in historic Southwark (pronounced Suth-awk), the building has been totally remodeled from basement to roof. The entire place is comfortable and warm. It has two restaurants, the hotel-operated Londonium, where breakfast is served as part of the hotel package, and Georgetown, a Malaysian restaurant. It has only 138 rooms, and, as is the case in most of London, the rooms are smallish, but the bed was heavenly, the flat-screen TV was great (although British TV is another thing--more on that later), and the bathroom was nice, too. The majority of the work staff, especially those in the restaurant and cleaning crew, seemed to be Russian and everyone was very, very nice.

After checking in, I grabbed some lunch at Pret a Manger, a chain featuring prepared food that is prevalent in London and grabbing a major foothold in New York City also, and headed back to the hotel. The streets were a little too bewildering for me at that point in time, with the rain and my jet lag, so I opted for lunch, a shower and a nap. I awoke around 4:00pm, London time, to find the rain had tapered off and the sun was trying hard to break throught the crowds.

I went out and roamed around the area surrounding the hotel. I discovered that London Bridge's National Rail station was directly above the Underground station and I wandered in there and looked at some of the shops. Then I headed down Duke Street Hill, past the hospital, and discovered Hays Galleria, a former maritime warehouse turned into shops, restaurants and office space. In fact, just about all of the south side of the Thames, Southwark, Bankside, etc., is experiencing major growth and is a major arts and leisure area. Hays had a number of cute shops, including a very nice bookstore, Riverside Bookshop, that I visited more than once. Unfortunately, I decided before I left for London that I would only buy books that I couldn't get anywhere else, like back in the States. This was twofold: One, I didn't want to lug them back and Two, I didn't want to pay twice the price for a book I could buy in the US. Although the British versions of books have more of a design sense to them and are more attractive, I was a good boy and bought only ONE book in all my travels and the many bookstores I visited, and that was a book that has yet to be published in the US.

From the Galleria, I wandered down the Jubilee Walk towards the Tate Modern museum of modern art. It would be Sunday until I actually got that far, because by that time it was getting dark, and I decided to head back and try room service at the hotel for dinner. Much to my surprise, it was WONDERFUL. I had salmon in dill sauce and it came to my room in less than 15 minutes, brought to my door by a very cute Russian woman who just about kissed me for giving her a 2-pound tip. After that it was off to bed (which is pretty much the ONLY place to be off to in that room, since the king-size bed filled the space pretty much entirely) and some British TV. But that's a post for another time.

Click here to see photos from Friday, October 6!

London Journal 1: The road to London begins and ends in New York...

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, the first night in New York was, anyway. My journey, and alas, yours, too, dear reader--if you decide to read the next ten or so posts--began in San Diego on Tuesday night, October 3, when I boarded the JetBlue red-eye to New York's JFK Airport. As red-eyes go, it was a near-perfect flight: no babies and the seat next to me was empty. We landed on time and in the hour or so before sunrise, and I hopped the first shuttle to Manhattan I found, getting me into Midtown before the sun showed up. I went to my hotel and wonder of wonders, they allowed me to check in early! This is an almost-unheard of thing in my experience. It was like getting a bonus day (I was only scheduled to stay one night). This allowed me to take a short nap, from about 6:30-9:00am, before I got up and went to have breakfast.

My new friend, Aimee, came up for the day from Washington DC to visit, and we roamed around the city all day. It was a very warm Wednesday, followed by a much cooler, Fall-like Thursday and the picture above was taken from my hotel window on Wed. night. I just managed to snap it as lightning flashed, illuminating the portion of the New York skyline directly outside of my window. OOOOOO...SCARY!

Thursday was a beautiful day and a walk in Central Park made it even better. I left for the airport (Newark this time) around 5:00-ish for a 9:25 flight to London, via British Airways. Why so early, you ask? Number of reasons...first, it's been years since I've been to Newark and I've never been on an international flight, so I was paranoid about that. Secondly, 5pm is, of course, the height of rush hour in any major US city. As it was, I was early, but I was glad. More on the flight later...for now, let's jump ahead six days and my return to the States. It wasn't as easy as the prequel.

I arrived back in the US, at Newark Airport on Wednesday, Oct. 11, about 3.5 hours after Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle, and/or his flight instructor, managed to plow their little plane into an apartment building on the Upper East Side, killing both themselves and bringing Manhattan traffic to a standstill. Not that I knew any of this at that point in time. It was pouring down rain, and we were told by our British Airways pilot that we were delayed flying into Newark because of the "unforecasted" rain. (I looked online in London...as of the Monday before my Wednesday flight, rain was forecast). I went through customs fairly quickly, and found my bus stop, only to find myself waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Eventually, another poor soul showed up. After followingg the polite New York policy of ignoring each other's presence, I eventually spoke up and asked him if he was waiting for the bus to Port Authority. When he replied yes, he told me he thought that traffic was tied up because of the plane crash thing. "What plane crash thing?" I asked. "A plane crashed in midtown, like at 70th Street."

Well, 90 minutes later I had reached my waiting limit. By this time, a few other people showed up, all waiting for the bus that never was. I decided I was going to break the bus standoff and go for a cab, and 3 of them, including the original gent from Florida (who turned out to be quite a nice guy) and the lean, lithe French girl (sorry...no pictures, but she also spoke English, Spanish and "knew" Italian, but that might have been a Biblical reference), decided to join me. We got in a cab with a driver from one of those countries we may or may not be at war with, who told us he has been working since 4:30 and we were only his SECOND fare. It took him FOUR hours to get out of Manhattan. Now we were making him go back in. He didn't like this very much, but he warmed up (must have been the French girl).

Luckily--for us--the drive to NYC was much easier. We breezed into the city in record time, even though it was pouring down rain. The road in the opposite direction was a parking lot, jammed with cars, trucks and buses. Everyone was leaving, no one was going back in. We arrived at Port Authority in about 20 minutes and all went our separate ways. I walked the 6 blocks to my hotel, in rain I haven't experienced in YEARS, and checked in again. (Same hotel as the first visit.) Luckily, my ShedRain™ raincoat provided ample protection from the downpour. With its hood and deep pockets, I was more than dry. (Promotional consideration provided by ShedRain™...no, not really, but that coat really came in handy.)

On Thursday, my old friend, Laurel (this is in years I've known her--almost 20--not in her age), came into the city for a visit. The rain stopped over night, and Thursday, October 12 was a warm, humid day. We roamed the city again, with the accent on bookstores (God love Laurel...she enjoys bookstores as much as I do), including The Strand, my favorite. We had a nice lunch and a cookie later (cookies are mandatory) and I walked her back to Grand Central Station. It was a beautiful night out, cooler and windy, and you could feel the Fall air coming in. Friday dawned to a sunny and crisp day, perfect weather for New York in October and I packed up and checked out early, around 9:00am, so I could enjoy roaming the city some more.

I left early for the airport--this time JFK--again, but it was almost not early enough. We got stuck in midtown rush hour-Friday afternoon-Mets in the playoffs and at home-traffic. It took us an hour to go from 42nd Street to the Midtown Tunnel entrance at 38th or so, compounded by the fact that our bus driver did something the New York City cop at the corner did NOT like. He made the bus go straight instead of allowing it to turn.

Twice this year I have been on NYC airport buses driven by Asian males and both have been HORRIBLE drivers. (In February, the driver of my late-night bus managed to drive the bus over guard-rails on the trip into the city.) This particular driver had the face-off with the cop, and for a moment, I thought the cop was going to shoot him for trying to drive around him. He didn't stop at the light before the turn, thus blocking traffic. The cop motioned for him to stop and he didn't. So the cop told him, "You didn't do what I told you to do, so now you can't make the turn. Go straight." When the driver, in extremely bad English, protested that he had 25 people on the bus, all going to catch planes, the cop told him, "Too bad. You can either drive straight or I'll start writing a ticket..."

That 5 minutes of going around the block cost at least one person her flight, I imagine. Me? I got on a bus THREE HOURS early (at 3:00pm) for a 6:25 flight...and arrived at 5:25. A trip that has taken me 40 minutes max, took almost 2 and a half hours. It didn't help that JetBlue had also moved up the flight time to 6:10 (and didn't e-mail me about that change), and the plane started boarding at 5:40. I used the kiosk check-in and barely got my bag on, and ran to the gate to find it was only starting to board. So I was on time...to wait for an hour on the ground.

I got home to rain here in San Diego around 10:30pm, just a few minutes late (that's the great thing about flying--you almost always make up some of the time in the air). It was good to be back. As I type this, it's two days later, the last Sunday of my vacation (which has lasted 16 complete days), and I'm tired and very much into being alone, which is unusual, since I was alone, for the most part, for most of my trip.

There's lots more pictures of New York--50, count 'em, 50!--at Flickr. Click here to see them.