Now arriving: Nick and Jerry's flight from Los Angeles.

Today we made it to London. The flight was pretty reasonable, though sorry for the lack of pictures. On the downside, since the flight left at 3:40 PM and arrived at 9:50 AM, it's theoretically a nighttime flight. Except that in LA time, we arrived barely after bedtime. We couldn't really sleep. So, we're kinda tired right now. But, I'll do my best to summarize today.

I should start by mentioning that yesterday we dropped off the cat at the kennel. She fought me tooth and nail about getting in the car, but I think she'll do just fine there. And we had a nice time hanging out in the oneworld lounge at LAX. Free wifi and quite good food, including authentic (according to Jerry) chinese food. Anyway, we then got on the plane, dithered away our time on board and got out in London with no fanfare. (Unlike our trip last year, what with the famous folks and all.)

Another minor downside: BA lost our bag. Strangely, according to them, it got lost somewhere between the plane and the carousel. (I bet it fell off the truck.) But, BA loses bags all the time, so they're pretty good at finding them. We had to file a lost bag claim, and didn't know the address of the hotel offhand. Later, when we were at the hotel, we had the hotel call BA, and between them they had us our bag a mere 5 hours later. Anyway, we made a pit stop by the British Airways arrivals lounge, after the easiest stroll through customs and immigration I think I've ever had.

That was a good way to refresh a bit and snack. And free wifi, to boot. On our way out of the terminal we noticed our first bit of authentic English food: Just kidding! Yay for american chains being all over the bloody world. Anyway, we took the tube to our hotel, which is about two blocks down from Harrods. This was mighty convenient since it's on the same subway line as the airport. The ride took about an hour, but we got to see some of the suburbia around London. Very quaint. The row houses with the little chimneys reminded me of the chimney sweep scene with Dick van Dyke from Mary Poppins.

After navigating the subway a bit, we found our hotel pretty easily.


It's a nice place. They didn't have a room ready yet, so we dropped our bags off and went shopping. We wandered Harrods for a bit. They really do have everything in there. You can buy chocolates, sushi, a suit, jewelry, real estate in Dubai... yeah, everything. And the escalators have an egyptian theme. No idea why.


While we were out and about we came across an adorable open-air market.


Crossing the street did scare us a bit, what with all the people and the aggressive drivers. Though, you're free to cross at ground level or on horseback.


Anyway, we were very impressed with how historic everything is. In fact, little markers explained some of the incredible importance of the location you happen to find yourself in. Such as next to a house where Jane Austen spent a year visiting her brother. Wow, so important.


Eventually, after dropping stuff off at the hotel and napping quite a bit, we went back out and found dinner. Being forewarned to avoid English food, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that most of the restaurants aren't actually British. Lots of Italian, French, and middle-eastern cuisine around here. A little Asian as well. In the end, we found a tapas place in a street off the main drag. It was a lucky find, with great staff and tasty food. Our favorite was the super-delicious jamon, it was from acorn-fed pigs and cost a lot extra. Mm, I want more, now that I think about it.


Anyway, it's late and we are exhausted. Travelling is hard. Let's go shopping! PS Yes we found the Prada, but no we didn't buy anything. Namely, I wouldn't let Jerry buy an umbrella.