London!

Our plane to London left about 20 minutes late. We were excited to find we had seats in the first row of the section, so we had extra leg room. We arrived pretty tired, because on the flight someone snored the whole time and we couldn't sleep. At the airport we met up with a group and took a van to the hotel. It's a long drive from Gatwick into central London. We were all so tired we slept on the van, and once we got to the room we slept for a couple of hours. Our plan is to turn in early tonight and try to curb the jet lag early.

London looks about the same as I left it back in 1999; its bright lights, old-world charm, and blending of old and new make it an enjoyable place to just walk around and enjoy. It's really cold, so Nora and I bought hats to try to keep warm. The exchange rate is awful; it's about $2 = £1. (Thanks a lot, George W!)

I don't have much to tell you about yet; we haven't seen anything touristy. We took the Bakerloo tube from Marylebone to Piccadilly Circus and walked around Chinatown and Leicester Square. (I forgot how much fun the names of places are here.) We found an Irish pub but it was already so packed with people that we didn't stay. (I didn't fancy being jostled about among wall-to-wall twentysomethings, Irish music or no). While we were in Chinatown I was startled to see Lee Ho Fook's, the restaurant named in the Warren Zevon song "Werewolves of London." You remember:

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.
He was walking through the streets of Soho in the rain.
He was lookin' for the place called Lee Ho Fook's.
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

Aroo! I wanted to eat there on principle but Nora reminded me we'd just eaten. So, maybe later.

Now that we've gotten oriented, tomorrow our vacation begins in earnest! We don't have a plan yet on what to see; maybe the British museum and the Globe Theatre. That's all for now. We're headed back to the hotel to sleep off the jet lag.

*By the way, the bridge in the picture is not London Bridge. It's the Tower Bridge. The London Bridge you're thinking of was destroyed centuries ago, and one of its many reincarnations has been in Arizona since 1971.