Welcome to my blog! After a most enjoyable flight with JAL (including overnight stopover in Tokyo complete with kimono), I arrived at Heathrow on Saturday afternoon, for my first introduction to the famous British efficiency. A painfully slow queue at immigration was made worse by the man behind me trying to reduce his waiting time by coming so close he was practically mounting me. I had to bring the carry on luggage into play to try and get him to keep his distance, but he was not to be dissuaded. It was quite a dance with him and my luggage through the queue, but in the end I accepted that my personal space has now been brought into line with that of Londoners...approximately 1 cm.
On the car trip back to my hosts' abode (S&K), I saw Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Big Ben, The Thames and the like. I was about to ask S&K to drop me back at the airport, seeing as I had pretty much seen all London has to offer, but thought I'd give it a few days and see if I could find anything else of note.
On Sunday we had a BBQ with guests from Finland, Samoa, New Zealand, Italy, US, Australia, and some locals just for good measure. London put on its finest weather and spewed forth about 20 minutes of sun. The clouds and wind followed for the rest of the day. Not to be put off, I braved it outside until my fingers went purple...after all, its Summer for god's sake! I did manage to get a little bit of sunburn on my face (or cloud burn as the case may be) so I feel like I've gotten my money's worth.
Today I went into the city, taking the DLR and the tube successfully...and pretty damn proud of it too. I managed to complete the round trip without any wrong turns to Sylvania f'n McDonalds (I apologise for those that don't know the private joke there). I got my second taste of British efficiency by waiting 45 minutes in a queue at the bank to pick up my card. It wasn't too bad though, as they had a waiting room with tea and coffee facilities. By some strange twist of fate, Lexy who arrived this morning fresh from Sydney, walked into the waiting room and so we caught up on the last few days of news.
Lexy has to pop out of the country in order to come back in to activate her visa in the next week, so we might trot off to one of the Nordic countries, or perhaps Spain, for a quick trip. You know how it is. So that sounds nice.
In any case, I must totter off to complete my CV in order to become gainfully employed...the conversion rate is killing me, I think I paid a week's rent for a snack this afternoon!
I'd love to attach a photo, but all I have is one of me in the kimono from the hotel...and I'm not making that publicly available. I'll start taking some pics when I see something of note...like the sun for instance.
Bye for now...
On the car trip back to my hosts' abode (S&K), I saw Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Big Ben, The Thames and the like. I was about to ask S&K to drop me back at the airport, seeing as I had pretty much seen all London has to offer, but thought I'd give it a few days and see if I could find anything else of note.
On Sunday we had a BBQ with guests from Finland, Samoa, New Zealand, Italy, US, Australia, and some locals just for good measure. London put on its finest weather and spewed forth about 20 minutes of sun. The clouds and wind followed for the rest of the day. Not to be put off, I braved it outside until my fingers went purple...after all, its Summer for god's sake! I did manage to get a little bit of sunburn on my face (or cloud burn as the case may be) so I feel like I've gotten my money's worth.
Today I went into the city, taking the DLR and the tube successfully...and pretty damn proud of it too. I managed to complete the round trip without any wrong turns to Sylvania f'n McDonalds (I apologise for those that don't know the private joke there). I got my second taste of British efficiency by waiting 45 minutes in a queue at the bank to pick up my card. It wasn't too bad though, as they had a waiting room with tea and coffee facilities. By some strange twist of fate, Lexy who arrived this morning fresh from Sydney, walked into the waiting room and so we caught up on the last few days of news.
Lexy has to pop out of the country in order to come back in to activate her visa in the next week, so we might trot off to one of the Nordic countries, or perhaps Spain, for a quick trip. You know how it is. So that sounds nice.
In any case, I must totter off to complete my CV in order to become gainfully employed...the conversion rate is killing me, I think I paid a week's rent for a snack this afternoon!
I'd love to attach a photo, but all I have is one of me in the kimono from the hotel...and I'm not making that publicly available. I'll start taking some pics when I see something of note...like the sun for instance.
Bye for now...
2 comments:
I hope the local off-licenses and Tool Sheds in the area have been forewarned to prepare for an increase in activity AJ, they'll need to top-up supplies and increase staff....
You'll be pleased to know I've discovered that supermarkets and service stations stock the essentials, ie, wine. I haven't discovered any off-licenses in my local area just yet...but I will sniff them out. As for the tool sheds, I've already sourced a few in the city and have marked them on my map for further exploration. I'm hoping to sign up for their newsletters so I can keep abreast of new innovations, specials, and whatnot.
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