In London

So we made it. Right after my last post, we boarded. As promised there was only meal service if you really wanted it. I had some liquid refreshment and then flattened the seat out and managed to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Ear plugs (crying baby nearby), eye shades and all. Sorry I don't have a picture.

Arrival in London was easy. People complain plenty about Heathrow, but it's a frigging airport. What do you expect? Even the best airports are only slightly more than bearable. Escalators down, shuttle train, escalators up, Passport control, baggage claim, customs (weirdly there was nobody in the entire "Nothing To Declare" area, passenger or guard) and then some money at an ATM and then a cab ride to the hotel.

I know that cabbing it is the most expensive way to go, but I always feel like I learn from cab drivers in a way I wouldn't from taking public transportation. We had too much stuff to do that anyway. So after a near miss on a roundabout, which led to a 5 minute tirade about Uber drivers (don't know their way around, no insurance, "I killed 7 of them last week"), we got into town, which led to a zig zag up and down side streets ("We are required to 'attempt to make steady progress'"), squeezing through impossibly tiny spaces, to get us close to the hotel.

He said he couldn't actually get up to the front door because of construction, and when he tried to pull over a construction supervisor tried to shoo him away. He was having none of it, saying something like, "I'll only be here for a minute to drop off passengers" and when the guy still tried to dislodge him he said, "Look, I can do this in 2 minutes or if we're going to stay here and talk it'll be 10 minutes." The guy backed off at that point.

The hotel was a 2 block walk across Leicester Square, and by the time we went through a bunch of discussions about whether I needed and International Driving Permit (I don't, at least not to rent the car) our room was supposedly ready. Except someone was in here fixing the blinds. No matter. We went to get lunch and are now back. It's 3:30 PM (feels like 10:30 AM). Time to rest for a bit.