The First Post

Well, I'm finally here. Four months of planning have led to me sitting with dani (my laptop) in a tiny apartment in London. And yet I could hardly believe how quickly my flight to Britain crept up on me. It didn’t even begin to feel real until my last day of work at Home Depot, five days before I left Canada. Next thing I knew, I was frantically trying to stuff everything into three bags and trying to get them to balance out. Gah! But my ordeal was nothing compared to one family on my flight- they must have been moving countries since they had dozens of bags which were piled up by the ticket desk. The man stood in line while his four children played on the mountain of bags and his wife tried to keep everything under control (can you say stress?).

I have no complaints about the flight since British Airways were kind enough to upgrade my ticket to ‘Club World’. That includes perks like a ton of leg room, excellent food and drink (including free champagne), and a pass to the fast track line at customs. How civilized.

The weather was beautiful once I emerged from the airport yesterday. The sun was shining and I stupidly thought ‘so much for rain’. Silly me, it started raining that night and continued to pour for most of today (it was raining horizontally at one point).

I ventured out in the afternoon to go set up my Oyster card for the tube and railway system. The man at the ticket booth was exceptionally patent with all my questions, which was really helpful. I’ve only taken a few rides on the tube so far but based on that experience I have to disagree with my guidebook and say how well organized it is... particularly if you compare it to the TTC subway system in Toronto. The signage is clear and there is enough of it to make sure that you know where you are going (the subway in Toronto had a significant amount of route maps stolen from the subway cars and it took months to replace it). The announcements are frequent and very audible (my Dad’s impression of TTC announcements involve covering his mouth with his hand and quietly talking). And some of them are quite pretty, like this one, for example.

And so it begins...