London

Greetings from London. I landed this morning, took the train from Gatwick airport to Victoria Station and then took a taxi to my hotel on Bayswater Road, across the street from Hyde Park. It is wonderful to be here. It is so.....so....English. Driving on the scary wrong side of the road and turning into the wrong lane is just the beginning of how different things are here. This must be the most diverse city in the world. You hear every kind of language passing by you on the street, including nearly unrecognizable versions of your own. Who ever said we speak the same language?

Friend D'on got delayed by bad weather in Chicago and was rerouted through JFK to Heathrow, I met her at our hotel hours later. Our window looks out over Hyde Park, and our hotel room is quite comfortable, except that they put the light switches in the weirdest places. We are beginning to figure it all out. We are blocks from the Portabello Road market, which has market stalls on the street every day and the huge antique sales on Saturday. We walked today through that neighborhood and the adjoining Notting Hill neighborhood - which actually is on a hill. Who knew? Tomorrow is tour day, and planning all the other things we want to see and do for the rest of the week. I'll have pictures in a day or so. See you then.