jack daniels and the queen

well, sorry it was so long before my first real post. i have a lot to say so hopefully i remember it all and hopefully it isn't too long.

quick details...

the flight was fine. got to dulles with plenty of time to spare, flew air canada through montreal to heathrow. i tried not to sleep too much on the plane as the sleep deprivation would aid me in acclimating to london time sooner. as luck would have it the middle seat on an airbus 330 isn't the best place to slumber.

so if you read the first post you know this is my first trip overseas and thus my first experience with going through customs. so after walking a half a mile from the plane to the customs hall i promptly took my place in line with 7,000 of my fellow travelers...at 7:30 am. what does it look like at 5pm??? it must be a mess. it took about an hour to get through and then on to the underground and finally made it to my friend oliver's home in west hamptead, london (northwest of the downtown area).

ok, so that wasn't so quick.

now on to some good stuff.

i didn't want to get sucked into the couch or bed so i pretty much just dropped off my things and headed out. after lunch in the neighborhood i hopped a tube out to wimbledon which at the time was on day 3 (i think). i didn't go in because the queue to go through was quite literally a half a mile long. still, one of those things that's just cool. i've been watching wimbledon for so many years and now when i watch and they show external shots of the all england lawn tennis club i will know that besides what they show there are things the tv cameras don't get...like this pic.

so i started day 2 out with a run. oliver had told me how to get to hampstead heath - a very nice park with lots of paved and unpaved trails. i managed to get there in about 10 minutes, run around for about 20, find my way back to where i started in the park and then proceeded to have my first encounter with the streets of london...that is to say i got lost. if you've never experienced london streets it makes getting around in washington dc a breeze, if that still doesn't do it for you do this - cook some spaghetti, take a good handful and throw it on the floor...there you have the map of london and to make it worse finding street names is tough. they don't have american style poles with signs on the corners the street names are on the buildings sometimes very hidden. luckily londoners are nice and they pointed me in the right direction and i had the $2 key chain compass i bought before the trip with me.

after getting home and cleaning up i headed off to be a tourist.

a stop in the tourist office at picadilly square and i was armed with a map and an idea of some things to see. other than a few hours of torrential rain on saturday night i had completely uncharacteristic london weather - sunny, low 70's a nice breeze and not humid - so it was a nice walk down to buckingham palace. as i was wondering around the front of the palace i notice a car pulling out of one of the gates i was near, it was a taxi and it was, as most taxis in london are painted with ads on the side. it struck me as funny the particular ads that were on the side...now we all know the brits can drink but the taxi painted with a jack daniels ad. some may say that whiskey is whiskey but something about the juxtaposition of the pomp and circumstance of the royal family an ad for the favorite drink of good ol' boys all over the south.

my friend oliver took the day off friday and after he took care of some things he met up with me and gave me a short walking tour of the indian district and then we headed off towards tower bridge. by some stoke of luck we happened upon an armed forces day parade - it's something akin to veterans day. we watched the short procession of current and former military and then toured the tower bridge. that's one of those things that can go either way...touristy and full of fluff or really cool and interesting. it was the later. skipping ahead a few hours oliver and i were walking along the thames and came across the most amazing busker who was doing this show with the glass balls - rolling them along his arms, manipulating them in his hands. i was so mezmerized that i didn't start video taping it until the last minute but it's still pretty cool. click here to see the video.

at one point oliver's wife cathy joined us but had to leave when she got a call from a friend who had locked himself out of his flat and need the keys she had. it's a long story but it didn't work out that easily and it ended up with cathy, oliver, myself, dave the key less friend, a co-worker of his, and mutual friend of cathy and oliver's all meeting for dinner and drinks at a pub. i mention it becuase it was a real united nations meeting. oliver is a german citizen who grew up in the us, cathy is canadian but left there as a teenager, the mutual friend is british but for the last few years has lived in dubai working for emirates airline, dave the key less one is british too and works for shell so has spent the last few years living in the netherlands and his co-worker who is american - texan no less - is back living in london after a few years in singapore. combine that with beer and wine and it made for some fun conversation. it was truly a unique moment that i'm sure i'll think back on a lot as it seemed like a scene from a movie.

this brings us to day 4 - my last real day in london as i would be leaving at 7am the next day. i spent hours in the tower of london which parts of have been there for 1000 years and it is where the crown jewels are kept. all of it from the historic to the jewels was fascinating. i don't have the time or the desire to give you a history lesson but if you google "tower of london" i'm sure you'll come up with some interesting reading.

for all of my pictures you can go here and browse them.

well it's been a long day and i need to get up and moving tomorrow if i'm going to see all of prague that i hope to. from what i saw just roaming around this evening for a bit i'm in for some great sightseeing!

happy trails,
dan