London - Day 2

Midnight on a jet airplane crossing the Atlantic Ocean happens when?   

At midnight Central on Friday night we were still over North America.  By noon GMT, we were almost touching down at Heathrow in London.  The hours in between were a noisy uncomfortable blur,  mixed with a few babies cries.  Or was it the stratosphere shrieking just on the other side of my flying box?  

It was a very smooth flight, I have to say.  For such a "bumpy" start, it was very smooth.  I believe we were cruising at 31,000 feet.  At 560 miles per hour.  Give or take. 

While it was a smooth flight to England, the pilot landed like he'd just been hired away from Southwest Airlines:  hard and fast.   It was probably a miracle that kept the tires from blowing out.  Thank you Jesus.

After landing, it took no time at all to taxi to the gate.  This sure wasn't Houston.  Everyone was off the plane in the blink of an eye.  Or 50.  

We were all herded to Immigration first, down a couple of long hallways and then to a huge room with at least 200 people snaking their way through rope lines to present their passports to an Immigration Officer and the chance to indulge in some small talk with a total stranger.   What looked like a huge line of people moved rather quickly, and it only took a few minutes before we were called up together to Window #39.  

The young, attractive, light-skinned female said in that Cockney accent I find so irresistible, "Passports please?"  After which we indulged in that little bit of small talk necessary to keep the world spinning, and she acted all sad and sorry to learn that Americans often got only two weeks of vacation, and sometimes no vacation at all, and you're only here for two weeks?  and will you be visiting anyone?  and where are you staying?   and please enjoy your stay.

That was easy.  No turbans here.  No chadors with only eyes fleeting.  No beards to my navel.    We're chameleons, as long as we stay in the West.

Time for baggage claim and as soon as we walk up, the bags come out.  We gather them and exit.  No one checks the bags as we are leaving the baggage claim area.  We go through the "Nothing to declare" door at Customs.  We are funneled out to Ground Transportation, and there, amid of sea of signs with names on them, I find my name, and our driver is from Ghana.  

Traffic is really heavy everywhere, but this guy expertly takes us right to the door of the flat in Marylebone.   He said the drive was quick because it was a Saturday.  If it was a weekday, the same drive would take 2 hours.  2 hours?!  To drive 18 miles?  Fuck!

We finally arrived at the flat by 2pm.  Our first flat, in Marylebone, sits on Harewood Avenue.  (For our second week here, we will have a different flat over in Greenwich, south of the Thames).

Here, we have the 2nd floor flat, but as it turns out, it's on the 3rd floor.  The first floor (street level) doesn't really "count," and there is actually a basement level, so you could say we're on the 4th floor.  Kinda like home.

The stairways are narrow and dark, barely enough room to haul a single suitcase.  Typically European. At least they have sturdy hand rails.

For this trip, for the first time ever in our brief time on this earth, we decided to forego the typical hotel route, instead opting for the VRBO idea.  Surveying the multitude of properties is rather dizzying.  You read a lot of reviews of rental units and don't know what to believe.  Some praise the property; others slam it.  Some have no reviews at all and we avoid those.  Don't want to be a guinea pig out a lot of pounds.

This flat is really tiny by American standards, but of course the owners claim it is roomy.  It's much larger than a typical hotel room, but really small compared to what we are used to.  As expected.  

The kitchen is basically along one wall of the main room.  Fridge, freezer, microwave, oven, a four-burner "hob" which we would call a cooktop in America.  No dishwasher, but a washing machine and dryer are tucked into the same wall behind a door.  Pretty ingenious, if strange.  In the same "room" is a  two-seat couch, a tiny dining room table with four micro "chairs", a TV hanging on the wall, and a totally out of place single chair.  All in one room.  Cozy!


The flat has three radiators, all placed next to the three windows.  We have no idea how to work them.  The cool air flowing into all of the windows is just heavenly.   Such a nice change from the sweltering oppression of Houston.  The small bedroom has a UK King bed, which is smaller than a US King but larger than a US Queen.  Ha!  Two closets in the bedroom with lots of hangers; no tables, no chairs, a TV hanging on the wall in the corner.  

The bath is really odd.  A square loo?  Never have we seen such a weird piece.  You almost fall in when you sit on it.  The "shower" is simply one end of the bathroom, about 2.5 feet wide and 6 feet long.  These crazy Europeans, using every possible millimeter of space.

After arriving at the flat, one of the first things I did was pop open the suitcases to see if we had a love note from the TSA.  Had they inspected our bags?  No, not a thing was out of place.  Digging around in my checked bag, sure enough, there is my "medicine" intact.  Victory!  However, we have no method of consuming the medicine, so I jumped on the computer to locate a pipe shop.  TONS of them all over the place, so I plotted a course to one that sounded promising.

The location is this flat is excellent.  Just down the street, no more than 100 meters away, is the Marylebone station, providing access to the "Tube" (underground trains) and the London Overground with trains running to Birmingham, Manchester and other points north.  

Inside the Marylebone station are several retail establishments:  a M&S (Marks & Spencer) food store with a lot of heat-and-eat choices; ATM machines; a Burger King! (yuk); a flower shop; a pub; a restaurant; a bakery; a bagel shop; an ice cream store, and an Information Desk.  All under a huge light-filled dome.  The place is huge, and just down the street.  One of the many Tesco food stores is just around the corner, with the full range of household goods (except ice!  no one sells ice!).

If you plan to travel around London much, you really should obtain an Oyster card.  Read all about them at the Transport for London website here.  We decided to simply wait till we got to London to get them, although you can get them online and shipped to you.  The Marylebone station had a large information desk, and we quickly and easily obtained two Oyster cards for travel in Zones 1-4.  Total of about 95 GBP.  You can use the Oyster card on the Tube, on almost all trains and buses, even some boat rides on the Thames.  It's the lease expensive way to travel in London.

So after obtaining our Oyster cards, we plunged headlong into the Tube.  It's rather breathtaking to consider the scale of the underground railroad in London.  First you descend via escalator about 100 feet down, and fortunately there is good signage once you get down there.  Bakerloo line northbound?  Go this way.  Bakerloo line southbound, go that way.  As long as you know your north from south and your east from west, you'll do fine.  After another descent of 10-20 more stairs, you end up on a rail platform with benches to wait for your train.  

The trains run often.  Here comes our Bakerloo southbound train.  First a stop at Baker Street, a major interchange, then Regent's Park, then Oxford Circus, then Picadilly Circus where we got off.  We climbed up to street level (thank goodness for all the escalators because I would NOT want to try to climb over 100 stairs!)  We emerged from the underground into a huge throng of people going every which way, speaking more languages than I'd ever heard.  Total chaos.  It was like Times Square, only thicker and without all the glaring neon.  

Unfortunately, there is no simple, free wifi all over London (and you do NOT want to pay international data roaming charges), so we went back downstairs and asked a woman at an information desk about how to get to our destination, the Hemp Trading Post.  Armed with new directions, we found Brewer Street but could never find the store.   Knowing we were close to the correct address, we noticed a "Smoke Shop" and went in.  You'll never find this place on Google Maps.  We tried.

Now armed with the tools to consume some medicine, we were hungry, and it was dinnertime.  Look, a pub, right across the street.  They sell hamburgers!  So we had one with a beer and it was delicious.  The Brits have really embraced the "hamburger."

We easily found our way back to the Picadilly Underground station and caught a northbound Bakerloo train back to Marylebone.  A short walk to the apartment and we both crashed, as the jet lag was finally catching up with us.

ZZZZzzzzzzzz.