Touchdown: London

I'm still not really finished with yesterday's post because among the other Big(ish) Stuff that needs to be enthused about is the news that broke out of Hudson, regarding Kerry and her dad Bill and our mutual friend Mark, among other things. But I'll have to come back to that later, if I can. Because I'm here. I made it. I'm now in London.

Warning: Due to extenuating circumstances and for reasons I shall explain shortly, chances are very good that I'm going to skip around all over the place today, so I'll excuse myself in advance if I seem somewhat scrambled and all over the map (literally and figuratively). Whew. Where was I? Oh yeah: London.

I came in on an overnight flight from Montreal and we arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule (!!!) thanks to some mighty fine tail winds, apparently. But of course they weren't anywhere near ready for us, so we spent most of those 45 minutes on the tarmac cooling our collective jets until they could clear a gate for us. I must say that for all the usual pre-flight anxiety and the chaos at the airport, I pretty much sailed through security clearance (the lineups were all for the other gates) and spent most of my time reading and trying not to fall asleep in the lounge. Thank goodness for my iPod and various podcasts which kept things interesting.

So, yes, back to the flight: the good news is that there is not much to report on that front. There was plenty of room and many people had entire rows to themselves; while I didn't get a triple-seat middle bench like I did coming back from Hawaii in July, I did get to stretch across the two seats in my row when my rowmate moved elsewhere. And while we got the yappy baby two rows behind us (again! Why does it always happen to me?), it was soon drowned out by my iPod and/or the movie, which was Mission Impossible III. In other words, eye candy that didn't make me feel bad every time I nodded out in the middle of it. Not much of a plot to miss, in other words.

Air Canada fed us, which was a bit of a surprise. These days I've come to treat it something like a lottery: some days, you wind, and they feed you. But given the quality of the food, somedays you win when they DON'T feed you. And then some days you lose when they don't feed you, and vice versa. I guess it's Air Canada's way of putting some of the fun and guesswork back into flying, since those darned terrorists have taken so much of the joy out of it.

Speaking of western decadence, I should add that Air Canada also provided free red wine with dinner, which also came as something of a shock, albeit a pleasant one. Then again, considering how much I paid for the "economy" ticket, I thought they might want to consider throwing in a shiatsu massage and pedicure while they were at it. So, all things considered -- free food, free wine, a surprisingly smooth flight, and a fast one at that -- I arrived in London remarkably stress-free. I even managed to catnap on the plane. Not exactly several consecutive hours' worth -- I mean, I didn't exactly pass right out at takeoff and wake up right on landing -- but near enough.

In fact I more or less sailed through British customs on the way in, too. I was almost disappointed that they didn't take me aside and demand to see the reams of documents I had copied in safety-redundant triplicates and secreted in various locations within my bags, because boy I was sure ready for 'em. Had all the right answers lined up 'n' everythang. I think the massive lineup was about 40 times the length of my (cursory) customs "interview."

And thank goodness D. forced me to limit myself to two large bags, because they were all I could manage (barely). But somehow I did. I took the Express train from Heathrow into Paddington station and took a cab from there; the total, about 25 GBP with tip(s), was still considerably less than a cab all the way from the airport would have cost, and I probably arrived sooner, too. I was even able to check straight into my (temporary) room; I'm here at Wigram House only for the duration of the orientation activities, then on Friday I move into my full-time residence in Harrow. And on a whim I powered up my laptop to see if there were any local wi-fi hotspots I could surf for free, and lo and behold there's an official network I was able to tap right into.

All in all, the omens are good. The weather here is shockingly hot, sunny and summerlike, far more so than in either Montreal or Vancouver, at least. The transition is indeed going as smoothly as we could possibly have anticipated -- and, it must be said, about as well as we had asked of the universe when Dr. Baby and I did our little visioning session a couple of weeks ago. And so it is. Thank you, o wonderous universe, for all that you provide... whether we like it at the time or not.

But now, as my brain and body try heroically to adjust to Greenwich Mean Time, and I've been powering back the coffee (which I must say is curiously good for English coffee!) from the moment I got off the plane, I'm feeling a little bit... odd. Kinda like I just finished 6 straight hours riding a mechanical bull while on a boat 12 hours at sea on wind-whipped waters. (So much for alliteration.) What I'm trying to say is, my brain and body aren't quite in synch. And I'm trying mighty hard to resist the temptation to go to bed, too, since it's now only 4:00 pm here and I really should stay up for at least another 6 hours in order to help reset my circadian rhythm to local time. But so far, so good. It's working. There's still a little juice in the tank. Maybe I ought to find a pay phone and start calling some of my local friends. Besides, I don't really have to do anything until somewhat later in the day tomorrow when the "welcome week programme" registration officially begins, so that'll give me more time to get myself set up and settle into some sort of groove.

I've already done some local reconnaissance to gather most of my immediate necessities (power adaptors & converters, plugs, toothpaste, bottled water, headphones for the Skype sessions, etc.). Incidentally as I checked in, the Westminster Cathedral -- whose spire rises just above the building in front of us -- chimed noon. And the building directly behind us is called Ashdown Gardens. So, once again the omens are good. Despite my rather questionable mental state (or perhaps because of it?) I feel good. I feel better than James Brown...