London: arrival

I left Greece this morning and am now on London. I have some observations about Greece before I get to what a great place London is. Greece has a big time stray animal problem. This isn't just in Athens either where cats were to be found all over the Acropolis. There are strays all over the country any place where there are enough human leftovers to live off of. There are also more gas stations that one would think the market could support. While going from town to town in Greece, gas stations would appear more frequently than expected. Also, you can't pump your own gas. There's something about places that don't let you pump your own gas that bothers me. I suppose it feels like artificial job creation. One last observation for now, though I may have more later, is that restaurants have a thing for floor to ceiling or at least very large glass windows. My first night in Athens we ate at a restaurant in a whole row of restaurants that all had floor to ceiling glass windows. While driving around on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we passed countless more restaurants with a similar love of windows.

A little bit more before I get to London. It's worth mentioning that I was almost reduced to watching Must Love Dogs on the plane. Yes, I didn't have to watch the in-flight movie but really now, how can I not. The problem with the movie, aside from it being a hopeless romantic comedy, was that they showed it on my flight from London to Athens. It's not supposed to be shown on the flight from Athens to London and yet there it was on the monitors along the ceiling of the aisle. Thank goodness a flight attendant realized the mistake and put in the correct movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I would've watched Must Love Dogs too if they had left it on. I feel like that's almost as bad as an alcoholic admitting to drinking the spilt beer found in ashtrays. But not quite.

About that greatness of London. It's great. I'm spending the weekend in London with Hermione before I ship myself back to Farmington on Monday. I landed here a little before 11 AM and cleared customs by 11:15. Very nice. I had my first chance to give Hermione a hug a little bit after noon. Great public transportation. Too bad the entire city is so expensive. Being back here of course reminds me of the week Andrew and I spent here earlier in the year. I could really see myself living in this city for some semi-extended period of time.

We had some lunch and went to the Imperial College of London because that's where Hermione has class. I wandered about during that time. While doing so, it dawned on me how close the college was to where my brother and I had stayed. I poked in and out of the nearby museums to sort of wander about. Neither the Natural History Museum nor the Science Museum held my interest for long. I spent some time in the V&A looking at the Casts and Courts section and the Chinese exhibits. I have pictures from my last trip from that museum so you should take a look at those if you want a sense of what I was looking at. I mostly wanted to marvel so of course I spent a wee bit of time pondering if that chandelier in the lobby would fit into my apartment. Maybe if it was on its side. I also simply wandered the streets a while and watched people skate about an ice rink that was set up near the Natural History Museum.

When Hermione got out of class, we headed over to the V&A and went to some exhibits I had not made my way to before. Here Scott, you can weep for these sad instruments. We also made our way through an exhibition of photography by Diane Arbus.