I am in London for the last leg of my trip.

I woke up in Berlin to Roy’s alarms and got up. He had to get up a few hours earlier than I intended to go get instructions on his new flat. We got ready to go together and he took off. It didn’t really hit me till the door shut that I was quite sad about continuing my vacation without him.

He has been a gracious and talented guide, arranging all the details of our hotels or places to stay, spoke the languages of our host countries, and generally knew his way around or could easily figure it out from a map. He also handled all the entertainment details - much of which was High Art ™ and allowed me to rub elbows with the cool people creating it. It was an unbelievable experience and I am eternally grateful.

Anyway, he left and I did a short time later. It was my intention to take public transit all the way to the airport. Seemed easy enough on paper, and especially given how easy the U/S bahn is… I was to take the U to Alexander Platz, then find a bus to the airport. I walked all over Alexanderplatz for 20 min trying to find the bus, and as if by magic no one would speak english with me. At all. No problem when Roy was there, but now I was fucked. I was starting to get sweaty and panicky (though I had given myself an extra 30 minute buffer), so I finally just grabbed a cab. It was almost 20 euros (versus 2 for the bus I wanted to take) but I was able to relax.

At the airport I was able to find the self checkin easily, which they didn’t have on my SF flight out (wtf?!) so I was checked in with about 70min to spare.

I somehow got lucky and was in one of the only rows with an empty middle seat. I hope I don’t have to sit next to an unbelievably fat person on my 9 hour trip back on Saturday.

So… I got to London and decided to get a roundtrip London Express ticket. It’s a super fast train from Heathrow directly to Paddington Station, which is quite near my hotel in Bayswater, above Kensington Gardens. I took a cab from Paddington though I might be able to walk it fairly easily. I will investigate that tomorrow. I am on Inverness Terrace a block away from queensway, which is a decent little shopping area.


My hotel is… a disappointment. The Hyde Park Towers. At 3 stories, not so towering. I knew not to expect much given that it is quite centrally located and was between 70 and 120 pounds per night - much cheaper than anything else offered at Expedia. The internet access is only available in the hotel lobby, and isn’t working right now anyway. While I was asking after it some tiny furious italian queen started berating the desk clerk about the internet access being broken and that being the only reason he chose the hotel. She just kept repeating her party line and smiling. I think he might have had a small stroke.

I got to my room, packed all my dirty clothes in my bag and carried my laptop in its envelope out to find a laundromat and wireless access. The laundromat was pretty easy which made me very happy. The last time I did clothes was in France. Ridiculous. The wireless has been a problem so far. Only internet cafes - connect on someone else’s computer which is irritating and doesn’t allow me to post these blogs. I tried a nearby Starbucks (where I paid only 3.5 pounds for a white choco mocha. aka 6 dollars. heh.) because it had a t-mobile hotspot, and in theory i have an account. It would not let me log in. At all. No info why, which makes me very annoyed. Of course, customer service was one of the reasons i stopped using tmobile as a mobile carrier too.

After laundry I came back and showered. I headed out with the intention of locating the queer neighborhood, but didn’t really make it. I walked along Bayswater Road (along the top of Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park) and continuing west as it turns into Oxford street. I didn’t see much gayness, but saw lots and lots and lots of shops. It’s miles of shopping. Crazy.

It was misting a bit when I started out, but was a torrential downpour by the time I gave up around Berners street. I stopped at some random restaurant to get a hot chocolate and warm up a bit before heading back. The maitre de seated me with no problems, but the waitress threw massive attitude, saying “It’s too busy to just serve you a drink. We don’t do that.” Yay for being back in an english speaking country, as I told her I had no intention of moving out of my seat, and the quicker she brought me my hot chocolate the quicker I would be out of her hair.

Then a quick walk back to Oxford Circus, where I got to experience my first London Tube experience. The signage is actually quite good, esp. given the complexity of the system. I quickly figured out which places I needed to transfer and the number of zones required to get there (just 1)… but the ticket machines were incomprehensible. There was no indication on my machine of which button corresponded to number of zones. I took an educated guess that the top/cheaper fare was a 1 zone, and the lower/more expensive ones would be higher zones, but I still don’t really know. The machines took my tickets without complaining, so I suppose it was fine. I am going to get day passes for tomorrow and Friday, as more than one or two trips justifies the price.

I got off the tube at my stop and went Tesco to get some water, then found an Indian restaurant to grab take out. I came home, ate, and watched a bit of TV. Going to try to get some quick internet in the lobby before bed.