There is a plethora of bitching to do about my time getting from the airport to my hotel on my first day in London…but that will wait until I get home, get my pictures into a suitable form for downloading, and relax.
Meanwhile…
I can’t believe I’m in this city!
I can’t believe that, in the last two days, I have done the following:
1-Manage to WALK through roughly two thirds of central London! I have never walked so much in my entire life…and it was worth it. This city…every square centimeter of it…is abso-f*cking-lutely brilliant!!! It’s modern steel and glass-meeting-centuries old brickwork with merry abandon!
2-Visit Leicester Square and Soho: the trendiest, busiest part of London, full of people, theatres, shops, pubs, restaurants, and sights I have only ever read about and dreamed about!
3-Wander through Knightsbridge, and see how the TRULY rich & snobby people of the world shop — no wonder the French have their embassy in that part of town! Looking through Harvey Nichols for a small trinket for my sister, I found scarves that might as well have been rags selling for over 300 pounds!!!! Harrods was less expensive, but more expansive…a truly delightful barrage on the senses. I ended up having a boxed sandwich lunch from a cheap but trendy store, sitting in the glorious sunshine, on the grassy square outside the Brompton Oratory.
4-The Victoria and Albert Museum: a sumptuous place I cannot describe adequately in words. A museum focusing on culture, it is the ROM on acid and steroids…but taken to the power of TEN! Inside I found everything from nearly thousand-year-old tapestries to the ACTUAL remains of the Roman Emperor Trajan’s gigantic column! And in the middle of all this was a glorious square, with fountains and paddling pool…in which I gladly spent a wonderful few minutes, paddling like the small child I have become.
5-Walking through Whitehall, past the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street, and arriving at the greatest location in all of London: Westminster Abbey, where all but two monarchs have been crowned since 1066. A thousands years of history, architecture, and the buried dead share the most magnificent of spaces. I laid eyes on the resting place of Elizabeth I, in a chapel worthy of her magnificent reign. She seemed so small and frail in death, an effect magnified by the awesome surroundings.
6-I visited Forbidden Planet: the mecca of geeky sci-fi-comic shops. For those of you who know me, this was a religious pilgrimage of Mecca-like proportions!
7-Wandered through Covent Garden, which is a place where shopping, eating, and having fun comes together in the most delightful way, in covered and open air markets that bleed into each other, and into the surrounding streets, which continue to exist in their centuries-old cobblestone state. I ate pasta al fresco, as the street fair around me continued in full force.
In the past two days, I have been gobsmacked, had my breath taken away, stood in awe and wonder, and forced to sprout the biggest, most infectious smiles I have ever produced. If these were the only two days I would ever spend in London, I would be a happy boy until the end of time. But I have FIVE full days remaining! I have the east end, the south bank, St. Paul’s and the City, Southwark, the British Museum, the Greenwich meridian, and the Imperial War Museum to look forward to…
I am having the time of my life!!!!
More to come…meanwhile, here’s a picture I DID manage to download…me at the bottom of Trafalgar Square, looking down into Whitehall, with Big Ben in the distance. I’m the little guy in the white shirt, khaki shorts, and sunglasses. 
