Finally there.

Yep.  Some things of note:

1. Coca-Cola is NOT the same in the UK as it is in the US...at least at McDonald's.
2. McDonald's in the UK are much classier than US McDonald's.
3. The Tube is awesome.
4. There is a whole lot of public transportation: Tube, HOPPA, buses...almost too many, at least for me.

The plane rides there went fine.  I went all artsy and decided to take in-flight pictures, but this one, on the way to London Heathrow from Dulles Int'l, is my favorite:

This is actually sunset.  The way the light hits the wing is cool, with how it colors the wing.  And the bright spot on the horizon makes a nice effect.  I don't call myself artsy in the photo category, but I like this photo a lot.

I was super worried about immigration, but that went rather swimmingly.  A few questions and I was on my way.

Everything is sort of strange in the UK.  Obviously everything goes the opposite way, like on the streets.  I suppose the UK realized that with everyone else going the "right" way, there would be mas chaos, so they accounted for this by inscribing "LOOK LEFT" or "LOOK RIGHT" at every crosswalk.  Actually quite funny, in my opinion.

I got in a little before midnight, given a whole load of delays.  New Year's was more or less celebrated by bugging the hell out of reception to figure out why my room phone wasn't dialing.  This was to call home and tell them I got there safely.  Sort of important.  Eventually I got it to work.  Not the most exciting New Year's, but whatever.

The first day (today!) was rather humorous.  I sort of expected my hotel to be around some landmarks, so I took off on foot from my hotel onto Bath Rd.  I walked for 30 minutes in one direction, and the only non-hotel landmarks were...a Texaco gas station and a McDonald's.  Given the lack of landmarks, I returned dismayed.

But I ended up traveling into the inner city via the Tube.  It's quite a sophisticated system, and a pleasurable ride.  Going from Zone 6 to Zone 1 is quite a long trip, approximately 45 minutes, and even on the first ride I saw a whole lot.  Residential areas were the great majority of it, and I even spotted some shanties, as in the whole bit, constructed from spare blocks of wood and aluminum and everything.  Quite sad to see it, really, as you never wish that on anyone.

Regardless, my order of business today was to scope out my soon-to-be area of residence in the St. Pancras neighborhood, which meant me getting off at King's Cross-St. Pancras.  Given a handy mapbook, I found my way pretty quickly to where I was to be, which is behind a set of gardens.  It wasn't so much a nice garden as grass with few patches of poorly maintained shrubbery, but I get the feeling much of the UK might be like that.  I did find this striking image, however:

I then made my way back to King's Cross and located the requisite Platform 9.75:

And then I made my way back.  I notice that in writing this entry my style has altered significantly, and perhaps I will blame this on jetlag, which I can feel right now...as I feel like I'm sitting on a plane.  So you have basically been divulged my first day in London, and I will update once again when I can locate some internet.

Was listening to:

Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain