London: Day 1

The flight from Boston was roughly 7 hours, which is nothing compared to the 21-hour India flights, so we really didn’t mind. An older white woman sat next to me, and she was talking to her friend across the aisle, to weigh her in-flight entertainment options. Tar and Diplomat came up, and not for the first time, I suspected that women a decade (and change) older than me are more my speed than my contemporaries. On my end, I settled for two hours of choppy sleep and tried to kill my time with Roald Dahl, an episode of a show called Hacks which I did not take to and then a movie that seemed fun, but I couldn’t finish called Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a Kiwi, Wes Anderson like movie.

We landed at Heathrow around 6am. I had done a good bit of research beforehand, to figure out how to get to the hotel in Covent Garden from the airport. But it ended up being a trial all the same because I confused Elizabeth line and Piccadilly line as part of the Underground/Tube. I talked to the girl at the Travel help desk to figure out how to get to Covent Garden and I should have stuck to her instructions, instead of seeking more info from others along the way. It only muddled things further in my head. Incidentally, all the travel assistants I spoke with were South Asians, sweet and slightly, concerningly subdued (except the older one with the British accent who channeled an embittered school mistress energy). I eventually realized that the Elizabeth line was completely different from the Piccadilly line, the latter being part of the Tube, but not the former.

The Tube was packed with South Asians and in general, there is a greater South Asian presence in London than in Boston or NYC, but they seem to have way fewer black people here. It still raises the, oh, London, isn't London anymore reaction in Americans. The hotel was just a stone’s throw away from the Holborn station. The man at the Front Desk, was again, South Asian; he put on as tidy an accent as possible, probably because a British accent is as impracticable for him as an American one is for me, but it made me wish we could both just get on with our happily-Indian, rather than our consciously-Indian accents.

The room was a relief. It has a slanted wall like an attic, with a skylight window (light-blocking shades, phew!), and all the essential amenities—a comfy queen bed, ac, kettle and a bathroom with a shower and hot water. I hadn’t had my tea yet, so we scouted out the local supermarkets within a 5-minute radius—Sainsbury’s and Waitrose—for water and milk powder (I brought my own tea bags, and I am glad I did). Surprisingly, food was cheap! Turns out food is subsidized here, and inflation pressure is mostly from housing and fuel. They had a good array of sandwiches, Mike got two from Waitrose and I got a salmon one from Sainsbury’s later, which may have been a mistake, but was delicious and left only a reasonable dent in my calorie-budget (such considerations will go down the drain soon, but, I checked all the same), so I will probably venture for round 2 at some point.

We came back and I had my tea, while Mike took a power nap. By noon, we were ready to head out. We took a long loop. 

First, we took in the sights at Leicester square, then Piccadilly Circus, where we stopped by at Fortnum & Mason, just because it looked so ritzy and hey, we are tea people after all. There are 5 or 6 floors, and we had fun browsing through the tea tins and accessories, and taking an occasional whiff of the tea samples, but there was nothing for me to buy. But then, there was a market on the ground floor and I finally found real scones! —the sort I had in Kuwait as a kid, but could never find in the US, that too for just £1/piece!

We continued towards Buckingham Palace and walked along the Green Park to get there. I scanned the King’s Guards with their bearskin caps and red coats, from a distance, to see if they were truly as immobile as claimed, because it was the only thing I could think of doing once we were in front of the palace. They are, by the way, and how or why they do it is beyond me. 

From there we walked along the edge of St. James’s Park towards Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Eye (tourist central) and finally Trafalgar Square. The large fountain in the middle seemed like a popular spot for people to post up. It looked convenient and inviting in the heat, so we did the same. I felt a light spray from the fountain, which was refreshing, until it suddenly intensified and started spraying water all over us. I was drained anyway, so we headed home. As we approached the hotel, we realized we were staying right next to the London School of Economics, though visually it has no special appeal, it is just an educational institution.

I immediately fell into a tired stupor on getting back to the room. I woke up with an intense need to use the toilet and disaster followed probably due to something I ate, but complicated further by dehydration (got drunk on sake with friends the night before our flight, and barely drank water except for the 4 cups of daily tea, 2 of which are decaf, but still). And now, I recover on water and coconut water. Whatever will day 2 bring?