Exact Change

I arrived in the UK on the night of July 12, flying into London Heathrow from New York JFK. To get from my brother's place in New York to JFK, I took the 7 subway train to the E and hopped on the air train to the terminals. This took about 1 hour 40 minutes and cost me about 8USD (there's no dollar sign on this keyboard). I landed in London 7 hours later where I hopped on the underground (or tube) and took a Piccadilly line to Cockfosters. I looked around at everyone on the train to see if anyone was having that uncontrollable urge to burst out in laughter like I was, but I was disappointed. Nobody had even a smirk on their face! The train conductor kept saying it over and over again, and I was having a secret internal laughing fit. Then I had to switch lines to a westbound Circle line to get to my Hostel near Great Portland Street (not nearly as funny).

London is a wonderfully welcoming place. It's very visitor friendly and has very safe feel to it (probably because there are hidden cameras survailing the public everywhere). There are maps posted everywhere, there is public transportation to your heart's content. My first reaction to London was - I feel very at home here. I woke up on the 13th of July and the sun was shining. I had breakfast, got a city map, glanced at it, but decided not to use it as I stepped out the door. I figured I'd wander and see what I found. I walked down Great Portland Street south towards the Thames River, and guess what I found. Starbucks, H&M, Burger King, MacDonalds, and Cheers - I thought I taken the plane to Boston for a moment, but I hopped on a "free walking tour" and ended up meeting one of those funny expressionless Royal Guards (and it was below 70F in July), and I knew I was in a different country.

After a full day of wandering and my walking (which ended with a bloody description of how to hang, draw a quarter a person, very appetizing), the fact that I was in another country was further rubbed in when I got a little thirsty. I stopped at a convenience store to buy some water and a couple of other things and my total came out to 2.68£. By this point, I had a ton of change in my pocket and it was time to lighten the load. I've always been really good a simple math and in the US I love making exact change. Because of this, I'm used to thinking in quarters. Here, there are no quarters. In fact there are 8 different coins and the sizes are only a rough indicator of how much these coins are worth. I pulled out a handful of change and being in the US mindset, I froze because what was in my hand was not what I was expecting. I was looking at my hand full of change, in shock, not quite knowing what to do. I had to ask the cashier to help me so I wouldn't hold up the line. It was very embarrassing. I did catch on quickly, and I haven't had another moment like that one so far... I wonder what it'll be like when I switch to Euros next week.

Below are some of my other pictures from London. I've also been to Oxford and I'm in Liverpool now. I have some great stories, but I'm meeting someone in 15 minutes, so I'll post again later on Oxford, and Watlington where I spent a couple of nights with my cousin, Davina, and her husband, Geoff, and 2 kids, Laura and Stevie.