I’m in London for a short holiday – and my first day was most excellent.
Given Heathrow norms (an airport I try to avoid), I fully expected to spend an hour, if not two, clearing immigration. Instead, I went from the aluminum tube to the London Tube in about 30 minutes – a (relatively speaking) close in gate, in combination with a surprisingly short non-EU/Swiss immigration line, plus the fact that my luggage was waiting for me, meant that I was quickly out into the city.
Although my room wasn’t yet ready, I put my suitcase in storage and headed out to see the city – I really only had a couple of plans for the day: Have lunch with the famous @torchyboy, hit up the Apple Store to fix a problem with my iPhone, and go to Foyles, the bookshop.
Given my surprisingly early arrival, I ended up taking a lovely walk across London, getting lost in the process, but having a Latte at Café Nero. One place where Germany is way ahead of much of the rest of the world is in milk at coffee shops: reputable coffee shops (including the major chains and the independents) all stock lactose-free milk. When I asked for it at Café Nero, he offered soymilk. Soymilk works, but barely. It doesn’t have quite the right texture or flavor – actually I find the flavor to be slightly nasty, so I end up putting in sugar, something I never do with lactose-free milk, unless I am feeling cheeky.
Lunch with @torchyboy was, like last time, great. I got to see bits of East London that I’d never seen before – and this is certainly going to be the trip of East London as I have further plans that direction later this weekend.
After lunch I headed to the Apple Store where, since I was early, I took advantage of the time to do a little emergency work. Eventually a Genius showed up (I think his name was James), who took one look at my problems (the power button really wasn’t working at all; plus the camera lens had dust in it), and fetched me a replacement iPhone – after making sure that the UK ones were the same as German ones.
Honestly, if Berlin had the Apple Store that we theoretically are supposed to have, I would have taken care of it a month ago – but I looked ahead at my calendar and waited.
Having gotten to the Apple Store early, I ended up squeezing in a Bloomington friend (thanks to Twitter) for tea – then, as I started fading, ran in and out of Foyles – got two of the books on my list, and went back to the hotel. I think I was in bed by 8:00 local time. Of course I’d gotten up at 4:30 Berlin time.
Love London, and hope you have a good time there, Adam.