Welcome to London

I'm not the world's greatest airline passenger, no, because the very thought of flying makes me ill. I hate the take-offs and the landings - even the slightest change in altitude has this intense physiological effect on my tender body, as though I'm going to fall through the floor of the plane and plummet to a messy and untimely demise. Luckily, I has Lisa's hand to clutch at the key moments. I'm never comfortable in a plane, either. My legs get cramped, the recycled air dries out my sinuses and the food has the exact opposite effect food is supposed to have on the human body. And how do people sleep in a plane? How? The only consolation is the tiny screen on the back of every seat, with multiple channels. I watched Flyboys and The Rock three times.

I hate flying. Really.

But, as you might have guessed, we arrived in London at around 6 PM local time. As I'm writing this, the birds are happily chirping in our host's backyard in Greenwich, and I can hear the dim of traffic nearby. I can only really give you general impressions at the moment, since we just woke up from a ten-hour nap. I can't consider England to be a foreign country. Everyone speaks English, the infrastructure resembles the Canadian variety. The public transit, the airport, shops and restaurants are oddly familiar. I feel unnaturally comfortable, as though I've been here before, but not for years.

The one element that reminds us we're not home is the architecture. We were struck by the row houses here, although we've seen them in a variety of contexts before. The older buildings that survived the bombing during World War Two are contrasted with the skyscrapers and box stores.

When looking at a map of London, the city seems confusing. I use the Thames and the major arterial roads as guides (obviously) or else I'll be lost.

Expect more to come!