Recalling London

Day Two - Bleary arrival and initial exploration

London looked very inviting from the air. We came in just before dawn, so the city lights were twinkling in full effect. Particularly impressive was the view of the Tower Bridge, which we thought was the London Bridge. Immigration was a snap, though in my bleary state I wandered to a different immigration agent than Kerah did and had to be shooed over to join her. We gathered our luggage, and headed out. We had figured that there would be a separate customs stop like in the U.S., but there wasn't. Maybe they flag people ahead of time, or maybe the pick out suspicious travelers, or maybe we just blundered cluelessly past it. In any case, we were soon out in the main terminal, changing dollars for pounds at 1.4985 dollars per pound. After a few false starts and no small amount of hiking, we arrived at the Heathrow Express platform. We waited there for a few short minutes, boarded the train, and were on our way to London proper. The trip was pleasant, and it was actually sunny outside. I think we may have brought the sunshine with us, as the corny joke goes, because we didn't see much sun thereafter. Once we arrived at Piccadilly Station, we took a cab to Fool UK HQ on Carburton and asked after John, one of our kindly hosts. At first the security guard told us that he wasn't there, so we went looking for his flat.Tower Bridge (not London Bridge)

The address that we had for John and Tess was on Clipstone Street, though as it turns out their apartment is one block over from Fool UK HQ on Carburton. Having walked a few circles around the neighborhood, we found the buzzer for his apartment, and had no luck. Back to Fool UK HQ, where we asked for Bruce Jackson, the managing director and another pal. He had us sent up, where we finally found that John had been there all along. The office was pretty empty, with the staff down to 17 from the 60 or so they had at the beginning of the year. We chatted with them in the office for a bit, then John took us to drop our things at the flat. We went to a cafe for some breakfast then retired to the flat to freshen up. Well, Kerah freshened up. I used my newly-acquired sleep mask to fire up the ol' drool factory.

A few hours later, we met John for lunch, and went to an Italian restaurant on Great Portland Street. The waiters were all super-jovial, like they were Roberto Benigni's cousins or something. Our waiter asked if we were American. We said yes and asked why he was wondering. He said that it was because we laughed and smiled a lot. I think that's code for loud and obnoxious.

After lunch, Kerah and I went for a walk. We started by walking around Park Crescent, then went to Regent's Park, which has the most amazing rose garden. They have dozens of varieties, with little placards bearing the names of the various strains. Even in late November, there were a number of blooms in evidence, and they were pleasantly fragrant, if you like that sort of thing. We walked around the park for a while, enjoying the sculpture and well-manicured grounds. Gradually we worked our way towards the London Zoo.

We arrived at the zoo at 3:30, to discover that it closes at 4. Rather than burn the £10 each it would take to get in, we contented ourselves with walking around the edge. We saw a lemur and not much else. (As it turns out, our friends said that it isn't much of a zoo in any case, at least not when compared to the Smithsonian National Zoo back in D.C.)

Still in search of wildlife, we continued north to Camden Town, one of London's foremost bohemian enclaves. We poked around in a couple of shoe stores, agape at all the cool kicks they have over there. We decided that London must get all the best shoes because they can charge so much more for them over there. That, or they charge so much because they get all the best ones. In any case, this was only the beginning of a long, and eventually fruitless search for the ultimate shoes.

As we stumbled about Camden Town, we realized that we must be considerably further north in London than in D.C., as it got dark around 4 o'clock. A bit depressing to get so little daylight, but it did serve as a useful reminder for us to go home each evening in time to meet our hosts for dinner and general merriment.

On this particular evening, John was attending the Investor's Week Online Financial Awards, a black-tie event honoring the best and brightest of the U.K.'s online financial sites. It reminded me of the salad days of U.S. Internet award shows, when the Fool picked up the finance Webby award in 1999, or the Cool Site of the Year in 1999 and 2000. At the CSOTY 1999, Robin Leach flipped off Derek Powazek, while I only merited a disparaging comment about my wardrobe. Of course, I didn't provoke him on stage, so I guess I got only as much as I deserved. John and his mates didn't get flipped off, either, and their natty tuxedos preempted any snarky remarks about their appearance. Nevertheless, they did manage to win the People's Choice award, and got quite drunk in the process.

Anyway, while John was out being a micro-star, Tess took Kerah and me to the Istanbul Meze Bar & Grill on Cleveland for some Turkish food. We were a bit blurry by that point, so I don't rightly recall too much about that dinner, though I do remember being pretty surprised at how difficult it is to get a glass of tap water. You see, most restaurants in London offer you a choice of bottled water, either still or mineral, for which they charge you £3 or something like that. Being the American cheapskates we are (not to mention being unemployed), we were repeatedly forced to ask for tap water. The servers generally pretend like they don't understand what you're saying, in an attempt to shame you into reconsidering your obviously misguided choice in beverages. As the missus and I aren't much in the shame department, we just yelled it louder and louder until the conniving water-pushers relented. Ugh.

GuinnessAll that shouting for tap water worked up a powerful thirst, so I asked Tess if she'd be kind enough to take us to a pub. Though she doesn't usually drink, she happily obliged (have I mentioned that Tess and John were incredible hosts?). Upon arriving at the pub (which one I can't recall), Kerah and Tess engaged in a long conversation about what Kerah should order while the barkeep stood there all but tapping his foot with impatience. Tess was explaining the basics of British pubs to Kerah, things like pint vs. half pint, that "lemonade" is really Sprite, and that beer mixed with "lemonade" is a shandy. What Tess neglected to explain was that the only thing that British bartenders dislike more than waiting for a customer to order is waiting for a customer to order a half pint of shandy. Covering my face to hide my shame, I added my order for a pint of Guinness "Extra Cold," a variety I hadn't seen in the states. I had assumed that it was a slightly different beverage, like "ice" beers are in the states, but as it turns out it's just a regular Guinness stout that's chilled to just a few degrees above zero celcius.

On top of the disappointing pint, Kerah was having a hard time with all the smoke in the pub. There weren't even that many patrons in the place, but it seemed like every one of them was smoking. Indeed, there are lots and lots of smokers in London. Now, I'm a former smoker myself, so I'm not one to cluck at the smoking of others, but man those people can smoke some fags (as they're called over there). With the pub not working out as planned, we decided to head home and catch up on our rest. We idly thumbed through a few London guidebooks, and turned in early.

> Day Three - Leicester & Trafalgar, Hayward Gallery >