Day One of UK Trip

I am writing this on actually the second day of the trip. It was the first chance of getting on the internet. And that's a story in itself which I will relate on Day Two.

We flew into London after a stop and change of plans in New York. The flight was packed with a very international mix of people. It was a little scary when as we were getting to our seats the flight attendant made the following announcement: "Would a Mr. Mohammed... please come get your baggage that you left unattended at the entrance to the plane!" Bob and I just looked at each other and sat down. We tried to get some sleep since we were flying through the night and landing in London at 11:20 in the morning. But the cramped conditions and occasional turbulence made it very difficult. At Heathrow we were greeted by Tim, the manager of the Marlow European office. He brought us to our "hotel" for the next four nights, a quaint, old English home in the village of Haywards Heath, that is now a bed and breakfast. It was in a very quiet and serene setting, down a half-mile path from the main road. The room had a lovely view of the countryside. But best of all, it had a queen-size bed with a nice heavy down comforter. Just what I wanted to fall into at the end of a long flight. And that's just what we did after dinner in the village. We chose an Italian restaurant from a number of different ethnic choices. Indian food is big here, but I wanted to give my stomach a chance to adjust before I indulged in the spicy stuff. Here's some observations I made after Day One:

- The countryside coming from the airport reminded Bob and I of New Jersey. We didn't tell our host, Tim, for fear of insulting him.

- It's a lot easier traveling internationally when English is the main language. Go figure.

- The only coffee the English drink is fully-loaded. No real decaf, only the horrible instant kind.

- Somehow tea tastes better in England.

- Gas here is VERY expensive. You don't see any SUV's on the road. Now I know where all the Ford Focus cars are being exported. The roads are all very narrow and winding. There's roundabouts everywhere which make driving very interesting. I don't think we'll rent a car here. I love the road signs that say "Queues likely". That means be prepared for traffic lines. Oh, and you really need to know to look in the other direction when crossing a street. I automatically looked to my left for oncoming traffic before I was told to look to the right. Oops. So sorry.

- I just love listening to the accents. It's very strange though when in your own thoughts you start pretending you have an British accent yourself. I have to catch myself that I don't make a fool of myself by accidently attempting to sound British!

Well, enough for Day One. Got to catch up to Day Two. While I still have the internet.