London

I drove from Salt Lake to St. George, Utah to meet up with my dad and his wife, then we all drove to Vegas for our flight to London on Virgin airlines. We left Sunday afternoon, and arrived in London Monday afternoon with a time change. The flight was crowded, and the food was mediocre. I ordered the curry, thinking of the good things I've heard about Indian food in London, but then I remembered I was on a plane somewhere over the Midwest. They gave everyone a sweet toiletry bag with an eye pillow, a toothbrush, and a single-use tube of toothpaste. I love the fact that people have a invented a way to fly over an ocean, but it's strange that planes are designed so poorly for sleeping. If I were in charge of designing the seats for a large aircraft for flights of 6 hours or more, I would set up bunk beds, or at least make it so that people could lean their heads somewhere, even if the seats had to remain nearly upright.

We flew into the Gatwick airport and took trains into London. The last time I navigated in an unfamiliar place without the GPS map on my iphone was when I went to Asia a couple years ago. It's strange how dependent I have become on having constant cell phone service, including access to all the technology that I've become accustomed to. At the same time, it's relieving to not use my phone for a while. No texts or phone calls, unless I want to get on Skype and talk to someone overseas. To navigate, we used a paper map of the city, rode buses, and asked around when we got close to where we wanted to go.

The buildings in London are gorgeous. A lot of them are historic with ornate brick work and classic architecture. Some are curved along an entire street, as they are in Picadilly Circus. Some are modern, with a lot of glass, metal, and large open spaces. I took quite a few pictures since I'm fascinated by creative architecture and modern design.

I spent my last night in London riding buses around the city. After midnight, buses run less often, but the people become more interesting, so it's worth the trade-off.