I just awoke to my first morning in London in Alex's friend Yevginey's apartment where we are staying during our visit. It has been a rough 40 hours or so of traveling and struggling to maintain consciousness to combat the time change. I am excited to get to the details about London but first I must complain about what everyone complains about: the airports and the flight over.
Actually, this time around I lucked out quite a bit. We flew Virgin Atlantic which is by far the best carrier I have ever flown on. From the moment we stepped in SFO i could tell a difference. It's like they treat you like a human being or something instead of a large bag of money. After checking in, we went through security and were scanned by a large machine which took naked pictures of me with my clothes on. Alex attempted to bring a bottle of tequila through security (not for the reason you're probable thinking though) but they caught it. We were forced to choose to leave the bottle behind or to pay a $25 fee to check an additional bag. Alex wanted to bring the bottle to a friend in The Ukraine so he headed back out to check it. VA shined a beacon of light on our travels by actually understanding Alex' situation and checking his bag for free (that's really all it takes to stand out in that industry). We got on the direct flight to London and I had the misfortune of sitting in the middle between Alex and a smelly Indian woman who spoke no English, treated me like her servant, and kept putting her bare feet on my stuff. The plus side? When the stewardess came by to give us drinks I ordered a beer and paid $0 for it. After dumping most of that first one the stewardess was still nearby so i asked for another and, sure enough, I got one. Again it was free. I found this Free idea to be a trend on the flight. I kept getting drinks but the polite, cute, quaintly accented stewardesses never charged me a penny or a pence. Also, the in-flight entertainment was incredible compared to American Airlines or United. Every seat came with it's own headphones and display which could play any of thousands of movies, television shows, video games, and music (again, free). I sat, I drank, I watched movies, I BSed with Alex, I did everything but sleep the whole way over there. The one time I actually fell asleep I was awoken by Mrs. Smelly Feat cause she had to use the bathroom. Her lack of English skills made everything she did come off as rude though I realize she didn't intend this. She would poke me and say 'Tea' and out of some sense of obligation I would press the Attendant Call button and request the Tea on her behalf. After 9.5 hours of this we arrived in London. Then we spent 30-40 minutes in line at customs while some drunk Israeli futilely attempted to convince us all to let him skip to the front of the line.
After we finally made it out of the airport it was on to my favorite part of London, the tube! (AKA the metro/subway). We easily, and inexpensively, made it from the Airport to Yevginey's wife Yanna's work which was very close by the London Bridge and the Tower of London. Though the tube in London is quick, efficient and functional, carrying several bags adds much effort which when combined with the lack of sleep and the fact that it was about 5 am according to our internal clock, was quite exhausting. The excitement of being in London and 2 cups of coffee counteracted this as we made our way through the city’s maze of underground tunnels. We met up with Yanna and decided we would wait for her to get off of work to show us the way to the house so we dropped off our luggage at her office and toured around for a bit. We finally were free of our luggage and we had some time to kill and we were both thirsty and starving so we headed down the river Thames towards the Tower Bridge (commonly known in America as the London Bridge even though it’s not the London Bridge) and stopped when we found a very nice Pub. We sat down to our first authentic Fish and Chips with a pint of Guiness. This hit the spot. Afterwards we were so exhausted we just laid on the grass in a park overlooking the London Tower and the Tower Bridge and we enjoyed the scenery and napped for a while. We did that and toured around the random side streets taking pictures until Yanna got off work at which point we met up with Yevginey and headed to the house. There was a neighborhood pub on the way which we stopped at to get a few more pints while Yanna went shopping for dinner. After getting to know Yevginey over a few pints we headed home, a bit drunk. Yanna cooked us a great dinner of: Ukrainian style salad, Jerk Turkey, and peppers and other little treats. It was quite nice and had a distinctively different style from the food we generally eat. We were already quite drunk from our time in the pub but we continue to consume alcohol with our dinner. Then, despite our exhaustion from traveling and the jet lag we continue to drink and bullshit until the wee hours of the morning.
Now, it is 10am on Friday, our first full day in London. Today Alex and I will explore the city some more by ourselves since Yevginey and Yanna both must work. At some point we will probably stop by the Sitecore UK office to say hello to our coworkers and maybe grab a pint if anyone is interested. Stay tuned, there are more stories to come!
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