79 Steps

We arrived safely in London, after a delayed flight from JFK (which British Airways was very sorry about, but the plane arrived late at the airport and then was kept from the gate for another half an hour by the air traffic controllers... "We're so sorry"...). Our flat is small but efficient and fine for our purposes, except that it's on the 3rd floor, which really means the 4th floor since in Britain the 1st floor is called the Ground Floor and the 2nd floor is the First Floor, etc. And there's no lift. So we get to walk up 79 steps every time we get home. Walking down them isn't so bad. Upon arrival, we each had 2 suitcases and a shoulder bag to lug up the 79 steps. I thought we'd never get there. And every time you hit a landing that makes it seem like you should be done climbing, another staircase appears.

I haven't figured out how to download pictures from my camera yet, given that we didn't bring James's laptop so our computer use is limited to internet cafes. If I find a way around that, I'll post a few. Otherwise, I'll upload them all when we get back to my Kodak Gallery web album and post the address for that.

Today was supposed to be a "transition day" with a little bit of easy walking, interspersed by long naps, to get us into the swing of London time. But we ended up covering all of the Kensington Gardens side of Hyde Park, plus quite a bit of Notting Hill and Bayswater (the neighborhood our flat is in--a really cool cosmopolitan area that reminds us of Michal & Jay's neighborhood in Brooklyn), followed by a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. We paid a big £6 each to sit in the Circle up at the top of the hall and hear the BBC Philharmonic play a beautiful piece by Arvo Part and a fine pianist accompany them on Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," both of which were gorgeous. We decided not to stay for the "epic" symphony by Gliere that told the very long and episodic tale of Ilya, a Russian hero. As I read the program notes aloud, James and I both said, "Let's go get a drink somewhere or something!" Having just endured 2 hours of Mahler last weekend, we weren't up for 80 minutes of someone who is oftened likened to Mahler. Thanks, but no thanks.

We're supposed to take a Thames cruise tomorrow, but big thunderstorms are being predicted so we might have to take a rain check. If it rains, we'll go to the British Museum or somewhere indoors like that instead. We have a huge list of things we want to do and places we want to go while we're here, so we won't be at a loss for ideas.