We had a long but uneventful trip, and I’m about to collapse into bed after being up for 32 hours straight, minus the fitful sleep (if you can call it that) on the airplane. Highlights and comments in brief.
1. The SFO International Terminal is wonderful. We are always way too punctual, so we had 4 hours to kill, and it was a treat to walk around a space so well-constructed and well-suited to its purpose. Even though it is very immense and high, it somehow feels soft and pleasing and calming. Designers of Wal Mart stores might want to consider what the SFO Int’l Terminal architects did right.
2. British Airways is becoming our favorite international carrier. The crew was as professional, friendly, and helpful as any I’ve seen, the seats we not overwhelmingly tiny, the food was passable, and the flight was on time. We landed in the new Terminal 5 at Heathriw, which is not quite as nice as SFO, but a vast improvement over other portions of Heathrow, which are more suited, I always thought, to the third world.
3. This is our third time to Europe in 4 years and with respect to customs, all we’ve ever done is walk through unmanned, empty spaces. Suzie remarked that it was easier to deplane and get through passport control and customs than it was to get out of the plane the last time we went to Des Moines.
4. We benefited from the incredible hospitality of the guy whose apartment we are renting here in London. His name is Patrick, and he is the son of the folks we are doing the home exchange with in Belfast. He volunteered to meet us at the airport and take us to his apartment (which eventually happened, although he told us that he’d be wearing a green Irish rugby jersey, but he apparently misplaced it, and so we kept looking and looking for him until finally we realized that the young man who was also walking around looking for someone [“a tall teenager,” he said] was our guy, and so we eventually did meet up. We packed our ridiculous amount of baggage into his car, and after we got to the apartment and unloaded, he offered do drive us to the nearest large grocery store, and waited for us to wander in a semi-daze gathering our provisions for the next week. A charming, interesting young man, a world traveler, yet as down-to-earth as you’d ever hope for. His job is working as the financial director for one of Britain’s largest law firms, Alan Overy, which he seems to like although I had to bite my tongue not to ask him how it felt to dedicate his life to making obscenely rich attorneys even richer, even though I suppose someone has to do it.
5. Our apartment is on a street of row houses located in the triangle formed by the Clapham, Brixton, and Stockwell tube stations. It is an area of mixed ethnicity that seems to be in the process of being gentrified (for better or worse), but it seems perfectly safe. The apartment is an excellent accommodation for a bachelor, as befitting its owner, but is plenty large and functional for us. After wolfing down a good portion of what we bought at the grocery store, we went for about an hours’ walk, and here are some pictures. I am dead tired but promise to blog tomorrow.
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