So here begins my journey to Cape Town South Africa. It started with a wonderful 8 1/2 hour flight to London, England. We got into England around 9am local time and our flight to Cape Town wasn't until 9pm, leaving me with a 12 hour layover. Having ample amounts of time I decided to take the high speed train which arrived at Paddington Station somewhere in downtown London, which only took about 15 minutes. Not bad time-wise, but a round trip ticket cost me about 24 pounds or around $50 US. I later found out that you could catch the underground trains for about half the price and use them to get around the city as well. The only downside was that they made stops along the way and took about an hour each way.
So I walked out of Paddington Station with no idea where I was or where anything was. I had 12 hours to waste so I wasn't really concerned. My plan was to just start walking and see where my legs took me. One of the first and most obvious things you notice is that everything is going in the opposite direction on the streets. I expected this, but it's still extremely difficult to get used to. Luckily the English have a brilliant solution to this dilemma.
The first place I stumbled upon as I cautiously navigated the London streets was Hyde Park, which just so happens to be, from what I can tell, their equivalent to New York's Central Park. It was a pretty beautiful place to walk around. They had a huge horse sculpture as I was coming into the park, which I thought Sarah might enjoy. I find it rather bazaar, though I did find some actual horses ridden by the local law enforcement. They also had some pretty cool trees throughout the park.
After the park I saw found myself in one of the more upper class regions of London. The streets were lined Mercedes,
BMW's, even quite a few Ferrari's. I ended up at the Chelsea Bridge, which won't have significance to most of you, but it is the English Premiere League futbol team that me and the few of the guys root for. At this point I had been walking for nearly 3 hours and decided it was time to find a local pub and pop in for a pint and some local fish and chips. It was only noon on a weekday, so I was the only person in the bar. There was a nice Swedish bartender that was courteous enough to chat with me will I enjoyed my meal. However, she had just moved there recently and wasn't very helpful in giving any kind of directions to the places she suggested I visit on the way back, so I decided to go for Buckingham Palace. It is quite an impressive place in person. I felt like it took up half of the city. After that I was pretty exhausted of walking around and headed back to the airport to await our flight to Cape Town. To be continued...
