Sweet home Yakima

Back home after a week in England.

As soon as the plane touched down in Seattle, my throat started to feel sore. Six days and a wicked case of jet lag later, I've almost kicked a pretty nasty cold. Still hacking and sniffling a bit.

Sunday was lawn mowing day. It had been two weeks since I mowed last and it showed. In some places the grass was more than a foot tall. Not much I could do about it, being out of the country and under the weather and all. So basically, my yard now looks like it has a really bad haircut. A little uneven, some missed spots, but things will be better next week.

Monday I drove to the Tri-Cities for some damn reason. I started out heading south on I-82, and kept driving until I got to Kennewick. That's my best explanation for it. It's been awhile since I've done a trip like that. I spent most of the time listening to CNN's coverage of President Bush's speech on illegal immigration. Being a journalist by trade, I'll keep my opinion on the subject to myself.

Back to work Tuesday.

London: Day Two

So, we had a change of plans and a couple of lessons learned on Wednesday.

We ended up visiting the London Eye observation wheel, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and the Tate Modern museum and took a boat trip down the Thames to the Tower of London (although it was too late to go in).

Lessons learned include:
Don't try to take the Tube during rush hour (especially if you have no idea what you're doing). Once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad.

London gets rather muggy even at relatively low temperatures. Wednesday the temperature topped out around 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) and it felt 15 degrees warmer.

Today's plan (subject to change):
Back to the Tower of London for the tour.
Harrod's department store.
Visit Highbury, home of Arsenal FC.
And other assorted stops along the way.

Now, photos:

This ... is London.

It's 5:30 a.m. I've just slept for 10 hours and I'm wide awake. Wonderful.

Highlights from the nine-hour flight:

The TV monitors in the backs of the seats. It's nice to be able to choose what you want to watch. Spent some quality time with "Good Night and Good Luck." Makes me proud to be an alumnus of the same university (technically it was a state college then) as Edward R. Murrow.

A guy on the flight passed out/fainted in the aisle near me at about hour four. According to a guy sitting next to me, the prostrate passenger had taken some NyQuil to help make the flight a little easier. I was zoned out, wearing the complimentary British Airways sleep mask and plugged into my iPod when I felt the big thud. I thought maybe a cargo door had blown off. Needless to say I didn't remove the sleep mask until my mother jabbed me in the arm.

Highlights from the ground:
Heathrow Airport is very big. It was about a 15-minute walk from the gate to passport control where we waited for about a half-hour in a serpentine queue (picking up the lingo, eh?). After another half-hour wait for the shuttle bus to the hotel, we got a complete tour of the airport as we drove from Terminal 4 (the international terminal) to terminal 1,2,3.

London traffic is not as bad as Seattle., at least in the middle of the afternoon. It took about a half-hour to get from the airport to the hotel.

The rooms at the K+K Hotel George are quite small, which is not suprising for a large city. But the room size did force us to change our plans. Originally, I was to stay in the same room as my sister and my cousin. But I ended up getting my own room which is about double the size of a queen size bed (not including the bathroom).

Plan for Wednesday:

Riding the Tube into the center (centre?) city.
Visit the Tate Modern and Tate Britain museums (riding a boat down the Thames between the two).
Eating something (haven't since we landed).
Visiting Harrod's department store (but that might have to wait for Thursday).
And a lot of walking around.

I'll be posting my own photos when I get back.