We landed, unpacked, and then went out for a bite to eat. It certainly has a different feel than the other places we have been so far on our trip. I'd venture to say that nothing else we will see will be close. London has 10x the people of Dublin, and 20x the folks in Edinburgh. I'd hate to see the math on the multiples of Dingle, or Kinsale, or Ballycastle, frightening.
This was a day that I had sort of been looking forward to. Weird to say that someone would actually look forward to going to work, but it added a feeling of normal to my life to wake up in the morning and head into the office. Ed, one of our partners in crime from Dublin, stopped by our hotel to get me in the morning. Sarah had already gone on her way to take care of some things on her own. We continued to walk through the streets and make our way past the Royal Chambers of Justice (think British Supreme Court) and Charles Dickens apartment, which I guess is an office or something now. The walk finished in the "Silicon Roundabout" where a lot of tech companies are springing up in London. Seems like every city now has a "silicon" identity, kind of like Lily Pulitzer. Regardless... I showed up into the office and got to meet everyone in our company's London office. It was really great to finally put faces to faceless email addresses.
The other thing that is rather entertaining. Mirko, another of our Dublin crew, had felt so guilty about yelling at the president of PSU to get him the lion, that he sent an apology to which the guy responded personally. HA. I guess it pays to be brazen sometimes.
Everyone is super nice and it’s kind of funny to see an
office, that’s part of the same company be so similar. Similar personalities, similar attitudes
toward work and life, just on the opposite side of the planet.
Ed, Simon and I went to grab lunch, a “proper” English
lunch, Meat Pies all around. We got
to talking about a lot of different
things. I asked their opinion of the
Scottish Independence vote. They seem to
think there won’t be much change to their life, but they mentioned that there
is fear that the pound and the Euro could see major drops in value should it go
through. That would be great for us
traveling, but not so great for everyone living here.
After lunch, back to the office, and introductory meetings
with some folks. And midway through a
meeting, Erik, an old coworker/friend walks in.
Sarah and I had been traveling for about a week and a half, and I had
met some of the people from the London office before, and seen them just last
weekend. But, seeing someone that you
have known for several years is a refreshing change.
So we sat most of the afternoon and discussed his
travels. He had been traveling since the
Beginning of August starting in Croatia and making his way to London before
heading back to the States. His 5 weeks
were almost over, and ours were just beginning.
We cut out from the office, and started Happy Hour and
getting to know the team in London.
Funny enough, four of them are traveling to LA to visit our office next
week. A shame I’m going to miss them,
since I’m sure they would love to see a familiar face as well.
Sarah came to meet us after her interesting day, I’ll let
her fill you in on that, but yeah, sounds interesting. And we proceeded to discuss what we would do
in LA for the three free days they have.
I think we got it figured out, but I still have to write them and let them
know… so guys please remind me!!
We made it back to the hotel, and slept in the next
morning. Erik came to join us for some
proper touristy goodness of London. We
only had a couple hours to kill before our flight, so we met up with him right
at Parliament and wandered over to the London Eye. For most of the last decade the London Eye
was the biggest ferris wheel in the world, until beaten out by one in Vegas, of
course! I’m sure there are better views
from this one:
We just walked around the city discussing with Erik his
travels, and what he’s learned along the way and what we should look out
for. He had just come from Amsterdam,
our next stop, so he was filling us in.
And we were commiserating at how good it would feel to stay in our own
beds.
He mentioned that our trip from here will only get stranger,
which kind of made us excited and a bit fearful.
So we made it back to the hotel, got our stuff and took
off. We had to catch a train to a train
to the airport. Well we get to the
airport about an hour before takeoff. So
we rush through the terminal to find our gate, only to find that we are in the
wrong terminal. It’s now 3:10 and our
flight leaves at 4. So we catch the tram
to the North terminal at Gatwick. Find British
Airways and start the self check-in process.
Name in passport does not match name on the ticket, try again, and
again… 3:20. Go to the ticket counter, “Well, your passport says
Raymond Putt III and the ticket says Raymond Putt, So of course they don’t
match.” Really?!? We run off to get
through security. The line wraps around
a couple of times. So, I ask the guy,
“Our flight leaves in 30 minutes, the gate closes in 15, can we get through the
line?” So, he lets us cut, and we get
all our stuff into the bins. On the
other side, two of our bins get to be gone through by hand. 3:25.
They sure do like to take their sweet time in England. They just kept dillydallying while we sat
there waiting. So, I had a water bottle
in my backpack, and we had yogurt in our food bag. 3:35. We go through the doors into the terminal
looking for gate 109. Look up at the
sign, we’re at gate 36. We just start
running. Follow the signs to
100-115. Go around the corner and more
signs, around another corner and there’s an escalator up. Get to the top of that and there’s a 200 yard
long hallway to another escalator down.
Get to the bottom of that, and we’re at gate 100. We’re running through the airport, trying to
get to the gate. We’re sweaty, and
hustling and we get to the gate, and I slam the boarding passes on the desk,
the guy looks at me puzzled, “You’re not business class, we’re only boarding
business class at the moment.” Turns out
we were a little delayed, and for once we were thankful for that.
It’s funny since last time I was in London 10 years ago, a
similar thing happened at Heathrow. We
went to the wrong terminal and ended up running like OJ through the airport to
get to the gate.
So here we are on the plane, flying to mainland Europe. Entering the land where speaking English is
now a courtesy. Ah London, we certainly
have a love/hate relationship. But all
in all it was a great time.
So, we haven’t looked at a map in a bit, so here’s where
we’ve been since the last time we posted a map:
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