Still Thursday

Here you can see an interesting contrast in architecture in London, ancient next to new. The 'Tower of London' is on the right and the rocket shaped thing is an office building on the left. The rocket shaped one has innovative ventilation. Outside air can enter and swirl thru the building upwards, so I guess that means that smog can reach all floors equally.

I took this photo during the few minutes that we had without total cloud cover. The next photo shows the trails of colored smoke that the Red Arrow Jets left across the sky as they made the victory pass across London after the city was chosen for the Olympics in 2012, I think it is. I got my camera out as fast as I could, but missed the jets themselves. We had no idea that they were coming.



Next photos is Sara and me on the Tower Bridge in London. One reason we have so few shots of the both of us is that traveling alone, we were warned over and over not to let anyone else get ahold of your camera to take your picture or it may be 'bye-bye camera'---I wasn't taking ANY chances with my little pocket HP R707 digital camera that I grew to love. Click the camera link to read other's reviews. I have had about 6 digital cameras, read tons of reviews and this is the best one for a trip that I know of. I bought a



It is just past noon here. I can take time now to tell more of the trip. We had a great trip over, first class is the 'only' way to go. Even tho the plane from Detroit to London Gatwick was 3 hrs late leaving, it wasn't bad. We were served champagne, to keep us from getting edgy and that sort of thing. Huge amount of room in the cabin. It was great-great-great.

Sara and I have had wonderful success in catching the correct tube trains to where we have wanted to go. Our hotel is in a nice neighborhood very close to Paddington Station. The Hilton is close by, so you know it is an ok spot when you see that. Our tiny hotel is a converted townhouse w/ 17 rooms on about 4 or 5 floors (no lift) . We are on the third floor, high ceilings, so like maybe 4 flights of narrow steps. They serve a included full breakfast in the basement room downstairs each day. Our room is on th eback of the building so it is very quiet. The bathroom is tiny and the toilet doesn't flush well, so we have resorted to filling the wastebasket with water and dumping the water in all at once for a decent flush. I have also found that the hand-held shower wand will reach to the toilet bowl so that is a second option.

The flushing problem seems to be universal here, there was a funny worded sign in the bathroom of the Chinese restaurant last night. I took a photo of it.

Yesterday Sara and I went first to the home of the architect Sir John Soan. One of those places I had seen covered in books and magazines over the years. That was one of my picks, but Sara really enjoyed it. Mid-day we went to the Tower of London, mostly 'cause Sara really wanted to do that. Late in the day, after a great dinner of sea bass at a tiny Chineese restaurant, we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum as it is open late on Wed. We were there till closing, about 10 p.m. The V & A is fabulous as it is the museum of hand made goods. ....Ironwork, silver, fabric, and just outstanding craftsmanship of all sorts. I had always wanted to go there. Sara loved it.

Of course, we have no idea how this bombing attack is going to affect our train reservations on Sat noon to Paris. And we have no idea what we will do today since what we had planned to do would have required riding the underground and/or trains.

This city is absolutely full of Muslims.....weird to see so many everywhere. The travel books say, and also my observations are that there are way more foriegners in London than British folks. Tons of oriental people here.

The radio says that the powersurges because of the bombs caused the underground trains to get off schedule so that is what caused them to crash and burn,etc..

I saw on a tv with no sound this morning Pres. Bush for a few seconds, so I wonder if he is in England and that must have something to do with the terriorist attacks.

I'll try to post to the blog when I can. Thanks for all prayers. I am sure we will be fine, well, not sure, but we do have 2 more nights reservations at our hotel and I am going to buy some beer right this minute.
L.