England, Day One

We arrived at 9:30am to a cool, gray skyline with a drip of rain here and there. It looks much like you would expect England to, although last year, thanks to global warming, the weather was gloriously warm and completely precipitation free. We grabbed our bags and made for the exit.

Lucky for me I was traveling with and real Englishman, Steve, who steered me away from the taxi stand, my preference, and onto the London Tube: mind the gap! We took the Tube from Heathrow to Earl's Court and then walked the remaining three blocks to our hotel. The walk was exhausting for me since I had brought toys, more on that later, leaving me in the larger bag with no wheels. The Hilton Olympia looks to be a 1960-1970s era hotel which has been mildly refitted, but is not particularly beautiful. After we dropped our bags off we wandered down Kensington High Street looking for Vodafone, SIM cards, and a pub, ale and lunch.

The young lady at Vodafone, Natalie, was helpful and had us up and running in no time. Steve was given an unlocked Nokia by a fellow at work while I was given a monster Sierra Wireless. My phone was a beast: slow, high power drain, bad cell reception and complicated. Steve lucked out in a a big way. In the end, however, we were able to call each other and numbers within the UK which was the critical goal.

Must of the rest of the day is a complete blur, owing to my being so tired. We had a lunch at a pub off of High Street on Kensington, wandered around a bit and then settled into the warm leather chairs at The Warwick Arms.