The Same only Different...

The Golden Horn blows again…

I wasn’t sure if I would blog this trip. After Moscow and Istanbul and the wilds of Turkey, merry old England seems pretty tame – especially the nicer bits of London, but here I am.

The flight was uneventful and as pleasan as one might expect except for the Icelandic volcano that did its fighting best to keep us home. Even before I headed off to Logan I had hear the flight was delayed from 7:45 until 11 PM because all the London planes were being rerouted around the plume. When we finally did get underway we flew straight north over Newfoundland and Labrador and off to the northern parts of Greenland before arching over Iceland and down across the Faroe Islands and the Orkney’s and on down to London.

No complaints with the flight and I even managed to sleep a bit more than I usually do. It was the least crowded fliht I've seen in about twenty years (only 151 on the plane). The Heathrow arrival and customs was also easy and we made it through and on into Paddington Station by train, and then by taxi to our hotel here in Marylebone on interestingly enough the address is: The Hart House on Gloucester Place….

We took a long walk this afternoon to stretch our legs and get some bearings. We went up through the southern edge of Regent’s Park and then back up Baker Street through Prospect Square and on up to Oxford Street with meanders through the food court at Selfridge’s, etc. Then we cut up to Hyde Park and took a stroll through Speaker’s Corner before collapsing footsore and jet lagged. This provided a good opportunity to figure our “how the bus works” – we have bought a very useful 25 Pound London bus, underground pass that is good for our entire week. So, we got the experience of riding along in the top of the double decker down Oxford Street.

I had spied an interesting Italian place earlier – and one that receives some good praise from the bulleting board here at our hotel- so after it all we parked it for a nice Italian meal. It’s not even eight and here we are back at the hotel thinking about how long we might manage to keep awake…fading fast.

This might explain the general lack of insight and wit that Golden Horn readers have come to expect and demand. My travel companion was rather freaked out by squirrels, pigeons and other little parkland creatures– perhaps I will expand on that soon, but so far so good.

Tomorrow? Probably one of these museums – maybe the Tates, or perhaps a run through the major downtown sites like St. Paul’s. Westminster, Churchill’s Bunker, etc.

I was surprised at how much I recognized particularly of Hyde Park around Marble Arch station from my long past trip here with Mom and Dad in 1977.

Photo: An interesting street sign reminding us of the prudence of NOT renting a car for our visit.