Day 1: London

Hi all,
So I will post a daily (ish) entry with a quick rundown of what we did, and also some separate posts of things that may have caught my eye or that simply deserve their own post (see "sign post" for example).

Day 1 was great - got into the (absolutely fine, well-located, clean, big-enough room) hotel and freshened up by 4ish, headed out to Picadilly Circus, ate decent Indian food and got a sense of how insanely expensive London is. In a nutshell, prices listed in GBP look to be the exact same as you'd pay in Seattle. Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, at 8.95...but alas, the exchange rate is about 1.80 USD to 1.00 GBP - essentially double the price of everything to be safe. Holy crap! So a 2.50 espresso is really $5. I told Amy be ready to pig out and fill up at breakfast, we'll grab a grocery-store snack at lunch and then involuntarily overspend at dinner. She said, "um, ok."

We went on a Soho Pub Walk which was good fun! We met some nice other folks we had fun talking to, and frankly the second point of the tour was to simply keep us awake and on the schedule I was aiming for (7-9:15 p.m. walk, back to hotel and settled in by 10:30; putz around until 11:30, sleep 8 hours until 7:30 a.m.). Worked out great! On the walk we stopped in a few pubs, the nice people let me try their beers (since I'd never have drank a whole one), we saw the red light district here (small, tidy - very English), the 'gay scene' and heard about some interesting history. Oh, we had a good coffee along the way too.

Slated for Monday: meeting up with my high-school friend Kellie's hubby Mark for the Tate Modern, walk along the Thames to then ride the Eye (got here too late to do it yesterday), some shopping at Petticoat Lane market and then Dinner on Brick Lane, the crazy Bangladesh-restaurant row where you negotiate your discount, free drinks and no svc. charge before going in (or so Bob, a guy on my tour, instructed me to do...and yes, it was Bob). We'll see how much of the plan actually unfolds -I'm relatively indifferent, but having a loose plan does make the day go better, esp. when a little jet-lagged.

A few photos I liked below - more to come!
~jenn

p.s. the photo below with the reflection of the Palace Theatre sign in it may be one of my favorite pics (that I've taken) of all time...