Barbara & Tom walking and eating in London

July 3rd

I stayed up reading till nearly 1am. Taking showers, getting back on my bed (id didn't get under covers all night) still wet, trying to get at least a little bit cool. Woke up at 4:44 to a loud walkie-talkie right outside my window. Some guy in a suit was sitting in his car eating breakfast, reading the paper, listening to his radio squawk and occasionally squawking back. Eventually he threw his trash out the window to the sidewalk and drove away. London is as dirty as they say New York used to be, but I've never seen so much garbage in the streets.

I read for awhile and after an hour decided I'd have to go for a walk. I wanted to cross the cool millenium bridge again, but once I got there I decided I'd get a picture of the Globe Theatre instead. It was right next to the Tate Museum but we hadn't know that when we went to the Tate. After the Globe, I saw the building that reminded me of the bomb in "The Mouse That Roared" and that the tour bus guide called a gherkin. Before I could see the gherkin, I was at the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge - as far as Barbara and I had walked yesterday. On my way back the path led through a tunnel full of motorcycles and a man with a huge tub of steaming laundry. Then a gate blocked the path, with a timer counting down the 13 minutes it would be closed, so that a crane could load containers full of garbage onto a barge. It was pretty interesting, but not 13 minutes worth so I found my way around, dodging the garbage trucks that must have been filling the containers. I finally crossed the Millenium Bridge and was able to read the slogan hidden by the panhandler before. I took a picture with the last of the memory on the 1 gigabyte memory card. Must be time to go home.

Returned to my room, had another shower and hit the kitchen for a cup of tea. A fellow dormer came in to burn some toast. He's from Singapore researching the archives for his master's thesis on the transition from Colonial rule of Malaysia to communism to independence (or something like that). This occurred from 1963 - 1973 so he plans to interview players in the process once he identifies them.

Our other dormmate just came through. She lives and works in Hong Kong. She's here for some sort of classes, but doesn't attend them. She says that the teachers don't teach anyway, it's just a way for people without vacation time to take a vacation.

I had no idea how long it would take me to figure out how to use the tube to get to the airport so I left early. I'd seen all I wanted to see and I was all packed up. I might as well sightsee the underground. It was a short walk to the Waterloo station.

It was pretty simple, but the line to buy a ticket was very long. I was much too clueless to use a machine, and I guess a lot of other people were too.

All I had to do was find the Jubilee line, take it to Paddington station and switch to the Heathrow Express which takes you to where the construction starts and a bus hauls you the rest of they way.

I followed about a hundred schoolgirls in their blue uniforms, many with matching scarfs. (They were about a third middle-eastern, a third black and a third white and other.) They were very entertaining, harrassing their teachers and keepers. I followed them through what seemed like miles of tunnels in Paddington station. I wondered if that's what the tube was all about. We finally all boarded the same train. I eventually figured out that somewhere down the line this train would diverge from the route to the airport. All the girls got off with me, but they had the good sense not to reboard the next train.

I had about four hours to wander around the airport before the flight. I searched every duty-free shop for good tea, since I never found a real tea shop, and made sure to spend all my English money.

The flight back was far superior to the flight over. I got a bulkhead window seat. My seatmate was a twenty something girl who'd been working on farms in Italy and England for the last four months. The sky was clear and it was about 4 in the afternoon the whole way. I got to study the icesheets, glaciers and icebergs of Greenland. It was fascinating and, with global warming, who knows how much longer it will be there?

I may never overcome my jetlag. Next time I'll walk.

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