Thoughts on London

Alrighty.

I've made it home. I still hate the French. But I am home.

I think my timing was just off. BUT STILL--I FINALLY MADE IT TO LONDON!
ok...seriously. London is a great city. I saw many of the things I'd ALWAYS-literally--ALWAYS wanted to see. To sound sappy, I think it goes back to when Charles and Diana got married. I think one thing I remember being fascinated about was actually, the time difference and that to watch it live, you'd have to be up in the middle of the night in the Midwest. Ok, so I was about 10. Stop rolling your eyes! :-P I know I was a geek. I even felt cheated when I woke up the next morning and only got to see the reruns. There was something else going on that day...something about airlines and deregulation...not sure what all of that was about. Or was it a strike. Phones got deregulation. No matter.

Anyway...I digress...ENGLAND...LONDON...

SO, I've pretty much always been curious about the place...we came from there, our ancestors here were mad enough at the time to cut ties with them, give up having a king or queen, sort of the same language, though they *the English* sound funny, but only the ENGLISH...the SCOTS sound wonderful, with the IRISH a close second.

YES...yes...always wanted to go.

So, since Charles and Diana, have just wanted to be there...see these places. I went FINALLY. To those who want to travel and haven't, the hardest part of it is sitting on the airplane for 7 or so hours waiting to get there. London is easy. Even if you think going to a city is not a vacation. I never felt unsafe when walking around alone. There's tons to do, for free and for a fee. The Underground (their subway) is quite extensive and what I think is best about it--many of the lines run parallel and then some cross and several lines. Hard to explain, but you can get to one place several different ways within the system, so even if you get on the wrong train at one station, usually, whereever you figure it out, you don't have to go too far to get back to the direction you should be going. YAY!

Despite what is said about British food, think in terms of America. What's our cuisine here? Anymore, we all eat everyone else's cuisines, too. I ate fish and chips several times...mainly b/c it was pretty cheap. I ate McDonalds a couple times...but for the Chicken Curry sandwich. Not bad for 1 pound. I know I ate more...I grabbed a slice of pizza at some local chain, but they have Pizza Hut, too. All sorts of things are possible.

Someone asked if people were friendly. I was in the city, still, so not so much friendly, but some people would talk. I even found myself on an empty train at one point. (Turned out the thing was going back the other direction, so everyone else heard the call and jumped off the train in the station.) But there was one other person left and she walked up to me to ask what was happening. Turned out she was Pakistani and just in England recently. Very nice but many people would just plain be afraid to talk to her if she was doing the same in the US.

to be continued in the morning.....