I’m back in London! There is lots to be done, but I have hardly explored the city yet, as it took so long to just get here. I wanted to detail my journey a bit…just to put things in perspective. I’m putting all times in California time zone so it’s easier to follow.
5:30am Thursday – My sister gives me a ride to the Sacramento train station to catch a train to Richmond.
7:00am Thursday – The train conductor announces that the train in front of us has broken down, and that we will be running about 30 mins late.
7:30am Thursday – The conductor now says we will be an hour late.
8:45am Thursday – I get off the train in Richmond and switch to BART.
10:45am Thursday – Arrive at San Fransisco Intl airport.
12:20pm Thursday – Take off for London!
11pm Thursday – Arrive at Heathrow Intnl airport.
12:45am Friday – After waiting in the 90 minute long customs line, leave the airport and get on the underground to my hotel.
2:30am Friday – Arrive at hotel and check in my bags…but it’s too early to check in (10:30am locally).
My hotel is an extremely nice 5 star hotel smack dab in the middle of a total ghetto. It’s super odd. And it’s about a 20 minute walk to the underground station in Bethnel Green, so I will have to reconsider some of my plans to prevent stops back here during the day to change clothes for the theater..but all of this comes with the territory. No matter how much you plan…alas.
After 22 hours straight of traveling and no sleep, I was exiting my hotel after checking in my bags and a guy walking by said in passing “your fly is down, mate.” “Yeah. Of course it is. That is today in a nutshell,” I thought.
And then, after being awake for 22 hours, I headed to the DC Super Heroes exhibit at the 02 Arena! The 02 Arena is a crazy place. It is HUGE! I only stopped by briefly last year, so this year I walked around the place…which took a couple of hours. There are tons of restaurants, a movie theater, convention spaces, and of course, an arena. Imagine a basketball arena with a high end shopping mall wrapped all around it, with a convention center jetting off to the side.
The DC exhibit was really cool! Being a die hard Wonder Woman fan, I kind of took pictures of every single Wonder Woman thing they had. I wish I could have bought all of the gift shop and taken it home with me as well. All of the pictures from this blog is from the 02 (including a strange giant “knife-show” display).
After the 02, I ran a few errands and then checked into the hotel. I then worked on getting my internet working because I had to go to work about an hour after checking in. So, I logged on to work and promptly passed out. I had been awake and traveling for about 30 hours straight at that point, and I was done. I woke up a few hours later and started my work day.
I’m looking forward to much rest, and then much exploration now that I’m here! I’m sure I will have a much better attitude in the morning!
Jeff
Aug 3rd, 2018
jeffinukraine2016 