We're Here!
June 9, 2004
We're in the Bread + Butter Internet Cafe, King's Cross, London. Access is only £1 per hour. It is much easier to make the £ symbol on a British keyboard, understandably. Shortly after Tanya and Erin dropped us off in Midway, we realized we left our address book at home. Along with it, all our reservation addresses, confirmation numbers, and itinerary. Through ample use of Directory Assistance and Jeff, I managed to find Erin's cell number and get her to send us the contents of the forgotten address book via email. We just finished copying all that into a notebook.
London is spectacular, although it seems to be undergoing substantial road construction. Riding on the subway (which is above ground in the suburbs) I noticed that all the houses have identical chimneys. I couldn't help but get songs from Mary Poppins in my head.
Now, some quick thoughts on the flight. There were some unexpected treats. We saw the New York City skyline as our plane descended into Newark to make our connecting flight. Thus, I took off with a view of the Sears tower, and landed with an eye on the Empire State Building. I tried to see the Statue of Liberty, but it was shrouded by smog. Virgin Atlantic has free Super Nintendo games in every seat. I spent some time over the Big Pond playing Tetris Attack and Mega Man X. We met a couple on the plane who recently celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary. They were on their way to a cruise to the arctic circle. We're meeting them for dinner at their hotel tonight.
I changed the random US currency I had on me for pounds. They have ridiculously large denominations for coins, £2 being the largest. This is about $4. Thus, they have something like 15 different coins. Everything has the Queen's face on it. The money changer could have given me any assortment of coins and I doubt I would have been able to tell whether I was being cheated.
I slept a little on the plane, but Kim not at all. I'm still running on adrenaline from the excitement. She isn't doing as well. Now that we've found both the Internet and our hostel, we're going to find a nice relaxing park in London and relax for a few hours.