London Calling
11/23/04 9p GMT
Ladies and Gents, the Lo Fat is currently over the Big Pond, and more cliches are in the offing. I will attempt to put down here the overall impressions of my trip if not the complete details thereof in the manner of a modernday Gulliver.
We can start with a short discussion of the dour and sour folks who were on the plane with me. Never before have I seen such a miserable lot on a flight anywhere. I'm not sure what it is about the English but they manage to look humorless even when they are in fact having a "great time". It may be that the thought of returning to Blighty fills them with dread - and why wouldn't it? - but I can't see how that can keep them looking like someone had done something unpleasant to their dog.
Fortunately for me, I have found the secret to relaxing and successful travel.
That's right, I sleep. I sleep from the moment I got onto the plane, till about an half an hour before we land I am completely dead to the world. This comes in especially handy, whether or not there is someone talkative next to you on the plane. So I performed my trick, and like clockwork woke up about 40 minutes outside of Heathrow.
Upon landing I discovered something I had hitherto been unaware of. It is the bliss of having an American passport. No visas, no questions, no nothing. The last time I had come to the UK, I was a filthy foreigner and was given the third degree by the officious immigration beak who was walking through the train as it passed through the Chunnel. Not so this time, when the fellow manning the passport control booth was not only quick in stamping my passport, but pleasant to boot! Wonders never cease! This is, I suspect, only the beginning of the ease that the US passport will be extending to me in my travels.
I made my way out of the arrivals area, deposited my bags at overnight baggage storage office (unthinkable in the fear-ridden United States these days), and got on the Underground.
This train is for Cockfosters
Said the proud display on the side, and I thought to myself how enlightened Europe was, where you could have a train say that. I turned the pod on high and proceeded to watch the people coming on and off the train. I got an eerie feeling watching the bland whitebread folks getting on and off, and beyond them the brownstone houses along the rail line. It was all reminiscent of being on a Brooklyn or Queens bound subway train, except without the everpresent Puerto Ricans that make NYC what it is. In fact, I found that even upon arrival at my uncle's underground station I was finding it hard to distinguish between London and NYC. This effect was amplified by the Starbucks coffee cups everyone was carrying, the gaudy Christmas decorations, and of course the fact that I couldn't hear anyone's accent. Douglas Adams was right, in the future there is no time travel because the past has become so much like the present, which is to say that all places look the same. What's to be done?
A nice meal at a cozy Iranian restaurant and a nap in the afternoon have me feeling quite good, if a little fat. Nothing to look forward to but the second leg of the trip and some visits with other family members in town before the airport.