Not sure how we’ve done this, but, we’ve managed to bring hot and sunny weather to the UK … so much so that it’s starting to get in the way of our fun. To use some local lingo, its bloody hot out there today. This city (country?) isn’t very well set up for heat. But enough about the weather.
We left Scotland on Saturday, taking the train down to London – about 4 1/2 hours, which is half the time that it would have taken to drive … or at least how long it takes locals to drive. I would have likely been slower. We arrived in London just in time to take the very pricey tube to meet up with Michele’s college friend Kerry — she whisked us off to a pub to watch England lose to Portugal in the World Cup. Not the prettiest scene ever, but, not ones to whinge, the English have handled things pretty well.
Kerry lives in a pretty nice area of town — loads of historic buildings all around, along with piles of millionaire homes, and fancy European cars. Money everywhere. Given the cost of living here, you’d have to have money. The pound is at roughly 2x the US dollar … even the cheapest things here are expensive. 2 pounds for a bottle of water, 3 pounds for a ride on the subway … money. Fortunately, as long as you’re willing to walk, the sightseeing is free, and there are plenty of sites to see. Famous museums, Hyde Park (think of it as London’s Central Park), big roundabouts, shops, palaces, guards, bridges, etc. They’ve got it all.
We took the plunge today and dropped some serious cash for a bus tour of the city — it was a good way to get around, and get a bit of info about some of the places we were seeing. Based on the heat and heavy tourist season traffic, we didn’t get to see as much as we had wanted, but, c’est la vie. We had also hoped to go to Wimbledon to see some tennis, but, I’m not sure if that will happen or not — again the heat is an issue, and time is the other problem — our time is short, and we’ve only got a few days here, with so much to see. We’re off on Wednesday morning for Italy, so, we’ll make the best of our time.
For this evening, we’re off in search of some good Indian curry — with the mass immigration from south Asia after WWII, there are no shortage of authentic and quasi-authentic curry shops … it’s surpassed fish and chips as THE dish to have while in London. Who would have guessed? Since we’re sweating already, a big healthy serving of curry surely won’t do any more harm! Maybe we’ll even find time for a cold one at a pub first … when in London, do as the Londoners do.
