Today’s the day. I bought my ticket yesterday, packed my bag last night, and I’m ready to roll. I’ve got the jeans I’m wearing, two t-shirts, three pairs of socks and underwear, and the polo I wore to work today again for Monday, since I won’t be able to get to my bags again until Monday night. That’s it as far as clothing goes. I brought two paperbacks, my guidebook, and my PSP as well. Everything else is locked up in an office waiting for me to get it.
Everyone’s scattering this weekend. One guy is staying in Leeds for the weekend, one guy is staying in York, the only girl on the team has booked herself a train to Scotland, and I am taking my trip. We’re going to be all over the UK. There’s another team from my company actually working in London on another project. I heard the girls on that team talking about going to Paris for a weekend while they were over here. I’m pretty sure they didn’t go last weekend, so they may go this weekend. If they do, that would give us a presence in five cities in three countries. We’re taking Europe by storm.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to update this. Normally I would write this either as I go or on Sunday night when I get back, but I’m planning on leaving the computer in the office. I hope I can remember everything I did. I’ll have to take some notes each night on the very handy memo pads the Marriott leaves in the room. I’ll do my best.
The cab ride in from Leeds was pretty uneventful. I read the paper. I should have slept. A lot of the cabs have tray tables on the back sides of the seats. I think that’s a pretty useful little idea. I’ve seen vans in the States that have tables in between the seats – these were big, full-sized vans, not one of the mini-vans you see more often these days.
The company lucked out on my laundry. I sent my laundry to be done on Wednesday, and it cost 51 pounds. Using the same exchange rate I talked about last night, that’s $100. The hotel is changing to a new laundry service, so they didn’t charge me for any of it in exchange for some feedback on the new service. What a break, huh?
I’m feeling a little guilty. I’m leaving at 3:00 to catch a cab to the train station. Everyone else is leaving at 5:00. That’s two hours I’m getting off earlier than everyone else is. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have scheduled a later train.
The train ride to London was fairly uneventful. It was long, of course, but really nothing to get excited about. Once you’ve seen an hour or so of English countryside by train it sort of becomes old news. I did see a number of children properly leashed in the train station though. You’re not going anywhere, kid.
Once I arrived in London I had to make my way to the hotel. Fortunately, one of the managers with me let slip that the Underground stop closest to the hotel is the Swiss Cottage station, so once I got my Underground pass set up it was just a matter of finding my way to the right line, which I didn’t do right away. I started thinking that I needed the Picadilly line when what I was supposed to be looking for was the Jubilee line.
After checking in it was time to find dinner and familiarize myself with my immediate surroundings. There really isn’t anything special around the hotel. Lots of shops, but of course by time I got to them they were all closed and I wasn’t in a shopping mood anyway. I had dinner at Bennihana’s and then returned to the hotel to rest up for my Saturday tour de force of London.
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