Easing into the UK
Jun. 8th, 2009 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maxcelcatI took it pretty easy my first few days in London. My jet lag wasn't bad - it's only seven hours difference between the US where I had been and the UK, somewhat less than the difference crossing the Pacific!
The day I arrived, we went for a bit of a wander over the to local Tesco - one of the major supermarket chains in the UK - so clearly I'd gotten into the exciting stuff already!
I was amazed at the bright sunny day - numerous sources had told me it was never ever sunny in the UK. But there was not only sun, there was blue sky! At least one of the things I'd been told about the country had already proved to be wrong. To be fair, a number of folks commented that the weather was unusually good.
On Wednesday Zoya, Katherine (Zoya's two year old) and I went to meet our mutual friend Julia for lunch. Clive, Zoya's husband also came along. I was very pleased to see Julia, and kept on bouncing up and down saying "Look! I'm in London!"
That afternoon, we went on a quick visit to the Museum of London, which was small but actually really good. It traced the whole history of the area, so it started with bone and flint tools at one end of scale, and ended with the great fire o' London - the rest of the museum was being renovated, so I have no idea what happened after that time :-)
There were some impressive bits and pieces in the museum. Viking axes which had been found in the Thames. The viking's used to raid the place quite regularly apparently, since it was handy to reach by ship. They also had various Roman artefacts and chunks of buildings. In fact, right next to the museum is a section of the Roman Wall, which used to surround London. And attached to said wall was a later Medieval tower in a similar state of disrepair.
My legs were still buggered by my 18 hour trip across two continents, so I actually found a handy portable chair and sat on it whilst looking at various exhibits.
And that was about all I got up to my first day and a half or so in the UK.
The day I arrived, we went for a bit of a wander over the to local Tesco - one of the major supermarket chains in the UK - so clearly I'd gotten into the exciting stuff already!
I was amazed at the bright sunny day - numerous sources had told me it was never ever sunny in the UK. But there was not only sun, there was blue sky! At least one of the things I'd been told about the country had already proved to be wrong. To be fair, a number of folks commented that the weather was unusually good.
On Wednesday Zoya, Katherine (Zoya's two year old) and I went to meet our mutual friend Julia for lunch. Clive, Zoya's husband also came along. I was very pleased to see Julia, and kept on bouncing up and down saying "Look! I'm in London!"
That afternoon, we went on a quick visit to the Museum of London, which was small but actually really good. It traced the whole history of the area, so it started with bone and flint tools at one end of scale, and ended with the great fire o' London - the rest of the museum was being renovated, so I have no idea what happened after that time :-)
There were some impressive bits and pieces in the museum. Viking axes which had been found in the Thames. The viking's used to raid the place quite regularly apparently, since it was handy to reach by ship. They also had various Roman artefacts and chunks of buildings. In fact, right next to the museum is a section of the Roman Wall, which used to surround London. And attached to said wall was a later Medieval tower in a similar state of disrepair.
My legs were still buggered by my 18 hour trip across two continents, so I actually found a handy portable chair and sat on it whilst looking at various exhibits.
And that was about all I got up to my first day and a half or so in the UK.
