London

As I embarked upon my journey, it felt great to fly British Airways and reconnect with my second culture--the English. Flight was great and yes, I actually studied a bit on the plane--of course I also watched 2 films, 1 great, 1 terrible. I saw a British film with Jude Law called Breaking and Entering and highly recommend this terrific film.

Anyway, landed in London and, after a journey through the terminal that seemed like miles, was greeted with the politeness that I always associate with the UK. I was a nice change after being yelled at by jerks in the security lines back in LA. Already, so glad to get out of there.

So, Heathrow is huge and it took me almost the full 2 hours that separated our flights to get to Kendra´s terminal. When Kendra and I found each other, we exchanged some dollars for pounds (a painful procedure) and got on the tube to our hotel, very small (check out but very clean and smart. We had our first pub meal, fish and chips of course, accompanied by 2 large pints, then we went sight-seeing. Weather was great, just a slight chill, and we hopped on a double decker then toured london from high up. We ended the evening with a cool pub near Camden and ironically didn´t get into our bed until 2 am. If you´re not clubbing, however, London shuts down by midnight. We nearly stranded ourselves on the opposite side of town from Victoria where we stayed.

Next day we had an English breakfast at a nearby pub before heading off to Kew Gardens. Our time there was short but it was lovely. We got back to our hotel, grabbed our things, and headed to the new Stansted airport for our flight to Barcelona.