Friday, October 8, 2008 – Londontown!!!

I could not believe I was finally back in London!! Just watching the landscape as I flew over I became increasingly excited. London is my favorite big city – I clarify that I consider big cities to be like New York and LA, but I don’t think of Chicago, Toronto or D.C. as big, which I think it has to do with all the time I have spent in those cities – they do not feel big to me. It might also have to do with my first visit to London – in 1999 I lost 85% of my sight in my right eye due to a very rare disease (one they still know very little about.) Not knowing what was going to happen or how long I would have sight, I quickly planned a trip to visit my friend Lynne who was living in London at the time for 2 weeks. On that visit I was able to explore so many sections of the city and experienced so much!! It was great. Thankfully since then I regained my sight and no longer fear sudden blindness. But due to the circumstances of that trip and time in my life, London holds a very special place in my heart.

After we finally landed at HeathrowShan and I got off the plane, grabbed our luggage – mine made it, no problems and headed over to customs/immigration. There was a huge line, in fact the sign where we entered said it could be a 45 minute wait. UGH… not what we wanted to hear. We both made a bet on how long we would be in line. Shannon thought it would be 20 minutes, I thought 30 minutes, but we were both wrong – it only took 15 minutes to get through the line. It was great. We then headed over to the tube.

Me by the Heathrow sign Shannon by the sign In Heathrow waiting for the tube The train we needed to take was the Piccadilly line towards Cockfoster – which kind of made me laugh and started our file of lost in translation pictures (basically things that have different meanings in American English and that you would never see in the states.) Here is Shan on the tube. We took the Piccadilly train for about 45 minutes to the Green Park Station where we transferred to the Victoria line to the Pimlico Station where we got off and walked to our Hostel for the evening.

We were staying at the Astor Victoria Hostel. When we got there it was too early to check in. So we put our luggage in their luggage room and set off for out very busy day exploring London.

Here we our leaving the hostel for the day.