How to Get Lost

The flight out to London was great. Wow. I love British Airways — amazing service for an airline. So far above anything Air Canada could ever hope to dish out. The food alone was better than most things I’ve cooked in the last little while.

Well, except for one minor little detail. My backpack has gone missing. The bag with all my clothes, toiletries, and various supplies for the next seven weeks.

“Doh” doesn’t quite cut it.

Oddly enough, I was neither surprised nor upset that this happened. Not even annoyed, really. I just accepted that it was an inevitability, and moved on with the day. Mind you, taking the Paddington Express from Heathrow was a little surreal without my belongings.

We’re at the Hilton Metropole. It’s a pretty sweet little hotel — all 8,000 rooms of it. I thought the Chicago Hyatt was big. I think this place dwarfs it several times over. Our room is nice, not huge (though it has two queens), and hopefully comfy. Though after being up for almost 36 hours (save for a couple of cat naps on the plane), you could put me on a slab of concrete and I’d find it wonderful.

Did a completely self-guided walking tour through central London, from the Marble Arch to Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square to Big Ben to the London Eye to Cleopatra’s Needle before running into Amy (who was off buying yarn) on the Tube. Same car. How freaky is that?

One note on Big Ben… A (strange) dream come true — one I never knew I even had. I never would have imagined that simply hearning the clock strike the hour (six, as it turned out) would be so significant.

My grandmother had a wonderful grandfather clock (my aunt has it now), which plays the Westminster chime. I still can hear the sound of that clock. Today, at 18:00, I heard Big Ben play off the tune, and then strike six times. I’ve seen it before in movies and TV shows, but there’s nothing like hearing the actual strike of the big bell. You can actually feel it.

So far, I like this city. A lot. though it is a babylon, in the truest sense of the origins of the word. There are hundreds of languages, dialects, and accents here. But unlike the biblical Babylon, it seems to work here. It’s a strange, but beautiful mix.

Now if I could just figure out how to get this computer to recognize my camera…

So, we’re in London!

And it’s finally sinking in.

Right now, it’s 9pm local time and we just paid 1£ each for an hour of time on the internet. Yay.

But let’s back up, shall we?

So, yesterday (Friday), Sandra and I drove to SFO to meet Geoff slightly late…ahem… after he landed at 12:30. We had already returned the rental car, so the three of us bummed around the international terminal, got some potstickers, did some window shopping, etc. Shortly after 4, Sandra had to leave to check in for her flight and we were on our way. Officially. At least, that’s how it felt.

Aside from the problem with Geoff’s backpack (I’ll let him explain that part), things have gone very smoothly! We even scored nice exit row seats on the plane, having plenty of legroom. I think I managed about 3 hours of sleep over the 9.5 hour flight. So, about 2 hours more than usual. At this point, I’ve been awake since 6am PST on April 29, Friday. Roughly equivalent to 31 hours without real sleep in an Actual Bed. Oy.

That’s probably why I didn’t manage to do much this afternoon. Kerrie, a knitting friend, and I were supposed to meet up at Liberty for some light yarn shopping/browsing, but something must have happened because I never found her. Still, I had a great time window shopping. And I even bought yarn – 6 balls of Kid Silk Haze and 4 balls of Calmer to knit on the road.

I wouldn’t have done this, had I known a certain something that Sandra left on my hotel voice mail an hour ago…

One of my Interweave Knits submissions was accepted! I’m still waiting to hear which one and what I have to do, but it looks like I’m going to be working on that on the road. I’m not sure how I’m going to get the exact yarn called for. It’ll be interesting to say the least.

OK, no panicking. I just managed to work with some test knitters to do the production on my two book projects, so it’s kind of ironic.

So, after we’re done here, we’re off to find a more traditional pub than the one suggested by the Hilton. I want some Fish N Chips! Please!

Turns out that I’d forgotten to insert the comments field in the posts.

Doh!

It’s there now, but due to this weird computer I’m using (I can’t view the HTML!!), I can’t fix the layout bugs yet. When I get to a better computer, I’ll clear that up.

Sorry ’bout that, folks!

You know those little stickers they give you when you check bags? The ones you’re supposed to have for when the airline loses your luggage so you can find it? Never used to take much stock in those…

…until today. I left mine on my flight from Seattle. Never used ‘em before, so figured why bother?

Turns out, as I was checking into my British Airways flight, I do need them, as they need to find my bag in the system. Alaska and British Airways might code share, but their luggage systems aren’t that interchangable.

The lovely Penelope helped me, and the bag issue has been sorted out. (I hope.)

I will never misplace those tags again!