London Calling

If you go back and read the introductory post to this blog, you’ll notice I said there would be other pre-journey posts. Well… you can just ignore that.

So, on Monday, I loaded up my rental car with the two bags — a large backpack and a smaller one — that I’m living out of for the next three months, and headed to Miami to catch my flight out of MIA to London-Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic. Despite it being the holiday season, everything went smooth shy of the outrageous price the gas stations close to the rental return were charging. I guess the Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases didn’t get to them… (and that my friends should be my only semi-political remark here).

The farthest destination I’ve ever flown to that I can recall (we went to California when I was quite young) is Denver from Atlanta, so the flight to London was longer than that by about four hours.

I had booked a seat in Premium Economy, as the seats appeared to be as comfy as those I’ve experienced in First Class on domestic Delta flights. See, I’m a portly gentleman, and so I like to have space, both for myself and — most importantly — for whoever might have the honor of sitting next to myself, especially on a seven-hour flight. The second point was fine. We had plenty of room between us. But there is no way that the actual area of the place where your butt goes was as described. No way at all.

To be clear, I wasn’t immensely uncomfortable. It just wasn’t as spacious as I imagined.

Other than that, the rest of the flight was terrific. We had two meal services, and I really enjoyed both the tortellini that I had for dinner and the, of course, full English breakfast. I have no idea how I passed the time other than with a couple games on my phone. I never watched the latest season of Jack Ryan like I intended. Didn’t even ever pull the headphones out. And yet, the time went by so fast, because before I knew it, we touched down at Heathrow.

I might have teared up a little bit. Thanks, Dad, for the emotional genes.

If you haven’t heard, there are all types of industrial actions (read strikes) going on over here, and on the day our flight arrived, the border force was striking, leading to a bit of nervousness about how long it might take to actually get past the line in the airport marking officially being in the UK. Thank goodness for the e-gates at passport control. It was a breeze. I scanned the passport. The machine creepily scanned my face, wasn’t fazed by the beard trim and slight haircut I had before leaving the States, and permitted me entrance into my first foreign country that wasn’t Jamaica or the Bahamas.

Finding the Underground wasn’t too difficult as the signage in the airport is quite good, though — and more on this later — the Brits do use a version of an arrow that absolutely throws me for a loop. I found the place for the train I needed, waited maybe two minutes, and then away I went headed for Central London.

The train slowly filled up on subsequent stops, but I was horrified because apparently despite open seats being available when they got on, two folks sat immediately next to me at two of the earlier stops. So there we were, crammed into three seats in a relatively open car. I couldn’t help but laugh. And squeeze in as much as possible.

Between the great directions from Google Maps and the signage in the car along with the frequent announcements, the trip couldn’t have been easier logistically. Even though my experience with public transport is incredibly limited, all the information I had made me confident, and that feeling allowed me to just enjoy the ride.

The only hiccup on the hour or so journey was changing lines at Gloucester Road. Remember the arrow I mentioned earlier? I can’t describe it and will try to take a picture of one because there’s one in my hotel too that throws me for a loop, but I ended up wandering for a good bit before I finally found the platform I needed for the line to complete the trip. The station was practically empty, so I had no problem laughing at myself. Loudly. It really was quite funny. I mean, it’s an arrow! How hard can it be? For me, apparently, quite difficult.

While the Piccadilly line train became quite full, the change onto the Circle line yielded a far less crowded situation, and I was quite thankful for that, even if the remainder of the journey was just four more stops.

At last, I reached the St. James’s Park Station, and when I walked out of those doors… I was just beaming. It was the same exact experience that I had when coming out from underneath New York City. It just looked like London. Whatever that means to you, that’s what it looked like. I promise.

After dropping off my bag at the hotel, I needed to kill seven more hours before being able to check in. Seven hours in London? Plenty to do, of course. But I didn’t sleep on the plane. I was crotchety. And it was cold. And wet. So I ended up just wandering around, somewhat aimlessly, in the same general area checking my watch often to see if somehow it was magically 3 pm yet.

There, had to get all the negativity out of the way first.

Big Ben is about five minutes walking from the hotel, so naturally I went there first, mouth agape as I walked past Westminster Abbey and caught a glimpse of it. It’s just a clock, I reckon, but it’s a clock I’ve wanted to see for about 37 years. And much to my delight, it was now pushing 9 am, so I of course stuck around to hear it ring out the hour. Just incredible.

From there, I walked back past the hotel, and to St. James’s Park, and I then made my way to Buckingham Palace. On a whim, I looked to see if there was a Changing of the Guard scheduled for the day, and sure there was one slated for 11 am, so I grabbed a spot at the fence and waited. In the rain. And the wind. Only to have a police officer with a very deadly looking gun come around about 10:15 to tell everyone there wouldn’t be a ceremony today.

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Great. Now how I am going to waste this next 45 minutes.

I walked back through the park and back down to Parliament Square. I decided I could kill a big chunk of time eating, so I outside a restaurant for it to open… only to for some reason decide that no, I wasn’t going to eat here. I don’t know, so don’t ask.

After peeking my head into a few different pubs after coming back to the area around the hotel, I finally picked one where I enjoyed some type of lovely pink strawberry gin drink and, of course, fish and chips. One problem: I ate way too fast. My plan to waste time was ruined.

Look, all I wanted at this point was my bed. I just wanted to sleep. So badly. Kudos to anyone who can land here and make the most of their first day. I could not.

I went back to admire the Abbey some more, but I finally said I’m just going to the hotel to wait, walking back and questioning if this whole thing even makes sense. Cursing myself for such a dumb idea. The enjoyment of the architecture was only short-lived… obviously.

But it’s not a dumb idea. I was just grouchy and sleep-deprived. This trip is going to be a life-changing experience. It simply cannot be anything other than that. So as I trudged up to my room — which is amazing and will probably get its own post — I just took a deep breath, told myself to relax, and smiled. It was a forced smile, but a smile nonetheless.

I’m a little mad because I walked nearly 7 miles and don’t feel like I accomplished anything, but I’m here for two weeks now (more on that later also) so I’m in no rush. Today will be a very laid back day, probably around Oxford Circus before coming back here to plan out the next several days in earnest. It might be dumb, but that’s how I’ve approached this whole adventure: I’ve sketched out a general idea of the cities I’m going to, but I’m not planning anything in the city until I get there.

One last note if I might. One of the things I’ve been most excited about is being around different cultures, and my gosh, this is by far the most cosmopolitan place I have ever been. It is incredible. While standing outside of Buckingham yesterday, at one point the tongues of at least three different nations surrounded me. I just stood there and listened while also taking a subtle peek every now and then to see if context clues would tell me what they might be saying. What I took with me when I walked away from that is though our words might be different, there is a universality to ourselves, all of us on this planet. It came in the form on this day of smiles, bright eyes, and laughter, perhaps made even more striking considering the damp grayness that surrounded us.

No translation was needed to see everyone was having a good time, traveling to destinations away from home, experiencing something together as one group. No factions existed.

It was bliss.