Response #1: My impressions of London.

Thanks to all of you who have commented or e-mailed so far. I'm enjoying getting to "know" my little audience! I think I'm going to have some fun answering the requests; at the very least, I think they'll get me back into a regular blogging rhythm again.

First up, Alison asks for my impressions of London. As some of you know, traveling is one of my great passions, and my past journeys have taken me reasonably far and wide. Yet somehow, I'd never made it to London. It had become something of a private joke that, despite my world-savvy ways, I'd never quite gotten there. Sort of like the way it took me fifteen years and countless visits to Paris to finally go up inside the Eiffel Tower. But in 2001, I finally did take the elevator to the top of Le Tour Eiffel (and loved it), and now I can finally check off London on my endless destinations list.

Truly, I loved London. We ate fabulously well (neuveau continental, Moroccan, Thai, gastropub, dim sum, Indian, and (of course) High Tea). Though English food continues to get a bad rap (and the gastropub wasn't our best meal), we're in full agreement with those who claim London is the world's latest foodie mecca. We zipped all over the city, and as far afield as Kew Gardens, using the clean, fast, efficient, and easy-to-navigate Tube. We saw spectacular architecture, both ancient and modern. We slipped ourselves into the flowing crowds that seemed to fill the streets at all hours of the day and night. We encountered almost exclusively friendliness, helpfulness, warmth, and good humor in our interactions with the native population. And we drank a lot of really, really good beer.

I was blown away by the beauty of London's public spaces (St. James's Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and Kew were all spectacular). I was also floored by how staggeringly expensive everything is there, although this may be more a function of the pathetic dollar than of an actually astronomic cost-of-living. High Tea alone, which we took in the beautiful, airy atrium at the very welcoming Lanesborough Hotel, set us back more than $75.00.

Throughout our three days in London, I was struck by how much more diverse the city seemed than New York, LA, or San Francisco. Our wonderful hotel (the very affordable, clean, comfortable, and congenial Rhodes Hotel, which I wholeheartedly recommend) was run by a Greek/Korean/British married couple. Women in saris or headscarves, Men in tunics or turbans or dashikis, black, white, asian, arab - It was fascinating and exciting to see such a mosaic of humanity. And, also, sometimes disconcerting. The first day, I saw two women in full burkas, peering out at the world from a tiny eye-slit in their robes. The sight startled and upset me, and though I saw many more burka-ed women during our stay, I never got used to it. Even writing about it now, the rush of conflicting reactions comes back to me, and I wonder again what those women must feel and experience as they move through London's modern metropolis thusly garbed.

We hope to return to London in the not-too-distant future, because we barely scratched the surface of all it has to offer. I'll post our photos from that segment of the honeymoon soon, once Steve approves their release to the internets.

Comments

[polina]

London the best city, i agree!