Ok. I know it is only 3:50 PM in Oklahoma. But I am going to post in this thread anyway because.....
Friday night I was up until 4 AM packing for my trip. Saturday I got up at 8:30 to FINISH packing and drive to the DFW airport. Then I was stuck at the airport for about 4 hours waiting on my flight to take off since the airport was shut down do to wind. Then I had a 9 hour overnight flight to London during which I got MAYBE 2 hours of sleep.
Of course, when I land, I now have to add 6 hours to my watch, so it's 9:30 AM. And so I can't exactly go to sleep. And so I get to my hotel, except I can't checkin as I am too early. So I find a pub and have a plate of sausage and mash (which was yummy). Sorry, no beer yet (they didn't have Caffreys). And THEN I get checked into the hotel, tube it over to the London Aquarium (which had the BEST reef displays I have ever seen in a public aquarium, PERIOD). And then I wondered around that part of London a bit, found Westminster Abbey, attended a 30 minute organ recital and then a short evening church service.
And by the time I got out of that, I was so tired of taking the tube everywhere, that I got the crazy idea to WALK back to my hotel (I actually have a very good sense of direction). Stopped for a quick bite to eat along the way and then finished my walk. Come to find out, maps.google.uk tells me that my walk was about 4 miles. Yep, that was crazy.
But I am really stoked that I basically found my way back to my hotel by pretty much feel alone (no real map on me) across 4 miles of a town I have never been to before in a country I have never been to before. Of course, I am know freaking exhausted. And of course the sinus congestion doesn't help much, either.
But heck, I am having loads of fun. And I will sleep SO freaking well tonight.
Tomorrow I am off to a bus tour of London and Madame Tousauds and, er other stuff probably. Tuesday I only have one item on the agenda so far - Chicago playing at a theatre nearby. But I ran across a brochure for walking tours of London. They run $12 (ok, £6) but look really entertaining. So I'll likely do at least one of those on Tuesday.
Then Wednesday, the point of all this, the interview and beginning of the journey home.
Weirdest thing so far --- I KNEW that I was in London once I had landed at Gatwick. HOWEVER, I just didn't really seem real until I stumbled across Westminster Abbey. Before then, just felt like I was visiting another city in the US. Besides, of course, all the fun accents, strange money, roads, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Ok, done rambling now...
Except for a follow-up comment on the London Aquarium. I was actually EXTREMELY disappointed until I wanderd across about 5-6 CORAL marine displays. Each of them were probably about 2/3 the size of Paul's 600 gallon tank. What made them ROCK, however, was the EXTREMELY mature coral colonies in them.
They had lots of everything (softies, lps, sps, etc). And colonies of each of those categories were huge. However, who among us is going to be impressed that some aquarium grew a big pile of GSP or leathers, etc. What was REALLY REALLY impressive was the branching acro colony that was probably 3x3x1 foot in size. That was the biggest branching SPS. But they also had good sized colonies of pink birdsnest, pocillopora, etc. And then they had wonderful colonies of Montipora capriconis and a couple different turbinaries and some merulina.
In short, I knew as a reefer that NOT only had someone done a great job setting up and maintaining those systems, but they had been doing so for a LONG time.
One quirk - the light above them was EXTREMELY yellow (6500K yellow). I suspect that is also related to their success in growing such beautiful and amazing colonies.
Anyhow, neato. I'll get some pics posted eventually...
