A short but excellent first day in London.

Hullo hullo hullo everyone! It's me, Bully, in London. How are you? I'm not only fine, I'm in London!

Ahem! Sorry 'bout that. Please excuse me for being so excited, but I'm having such a brilliant time here I can hardly control myself! As I promised last night, here's my blog entry on my first day here, but first let me fill you in on the website to keep up on all my fantastic London photos. Bookmark it today, check it semi-frequently (at least every day or so!), and tell all your discriminating, intelligent friends that if they're not checking in every other day at the least they are missing a lot of cool photos!

Okay, public service announcement over.

We all arrived in London at noon-ish local time. It was a long plane ride but luckily I was able to snooze through most of it. It is easier to sleep when you are in a backpack stowed away in the overhead baggage compartment. We all showed our passports to the British man at passport control as we entered the country. I'd been very worried about that part. I was led to believe that they would quiz you on aspects of British history and culture before they let you in the country so I have been studying my Simon Schama books and watching episodes of Monty Python. But all they want to know is where you are going to stay and how long you are going to be there! It was a bit disappointing because I was all ready to perform the Fish-Slapping Dance. He did suggest (with a hearty chuckle) that we would be very welcome if we spent a lot of money in London's shops and put a lot of weak US dollars into the UK economy. Before I could explain to the customs agent how I had been saving my dimes for such a long time and turning them into pounds and pence for my London holiday John dragged me away and we are off to the shuttle bus!

It is very warm here in London: cloudy all day but in the mid-fifties. I did not need a winter coat at all! It has not yet rained either. I don't think we will have a white Christmas.

We checked into the lovely Copthorne Tara Hotel in beautiful Kensington. After a yummy lunch of sandwiches from Boots right up the street, we all took a nap before venturing out into London. I thought I would be too excited to sleep but I was snoring in seconds. Plane travel takes a lot out of you. I am not certain what jet lag really is but it makes me kinda sleepy.

As I said briefly last night, we met Christine, Jonas and little Olivia (yay! I love Olivia) for dinner at the fabulous Pizza Express in Earl's Court. Then we walked around Kensington and went home to bed. If you're reading that and think "Well, that doesn't sound like a very exciting day," well, then you are wrong as a very wrong-headed person because it was an excellent day in London. I know I have many more adventures to come and this was a good way to roll into it.

Now we are off to free continental breakfast!. I was a little worried about this description but John tells me that "continental" does not mean in this case a heavily-accented European guy in a striped shirt smoking a little black cigarette and fingering a waxed mustache. He tells me there will be cereal (wow!) and buns (hooray!) and tea (excellent!). I'm anxious to go downstairs and find out.

Then, we are going to Covent Garden. As I understand it, there are no peas and carrots in this garden but rather a dazzling array of stores. That's my kind of garden! Off I go into London...I'll blog at you later!