The Other Side of the Pond

The words “Yadda yadda yadda” and “blah blah blah” are now officially part of the Oxford English dictionary. Since we left home over a week ago and this is my first journal entry, I may use these words on occasion here in order to spare your eyes with the full details of our trip so far.

Our flight over the pond was fine. We considered it a good sign that our luggage was already waiting for us when we arrived at baggage claim. We sailed through passport control, glided past customs, and after stabbing fitfully at the over-used touch screen of the Heathrow Express machine, we boarded the train and slipped through the now darkening night toward London.

We spend a few days exploring London with our friends Hana and Craig and then met up with another friend, Jeff and spent three days in the English countryside visiting Stonehenge, the Farleigh-Hungerford Castle, Bath and Newbury. The quaint town of Castle Combe was a picturesque example of English stone cottages. And we checked out several pubs where we raised our glasses of the frothy brew in a toast to all our friends’ back home.

We were impressed by the Brits insatiable need to communicate. Almost everyone had a cell phone plugged into his ear. I suspect that this is due to the fact that London is chocker-block full of people from everywhere else. On the underground subway, we heard almost every language spoken on the planet. Travels seem to migrate here, to work and raise money to move on. We too are on the move again. Our six days in London are over and St. Petersburg awaits us, as does our 2 O’clock Aeroflot flight to get us there.