Arrival

Arrival at London Heathrow went smoothly despite the early hour. Customs took less than 30 seconds and my bag arrived intact. My friend Paul from Breckenridge picked me up at the airport. It was nice that I didn't have to find my way around town right away in my drowsy state. We drove towards the center of town in morning rush hour traffic. Paul lives in Richmond which is a neighborhood to the southwest of the central part of the city. The cars driving on the left in England made me seriously disoriented. Parts of the city were almost gridlocked during rush hour. The traffic was madness with cars squeezing by each other with only inches to spare and motorcycles riding on sidewalks and on the wrong side of the street. Apparently this is just normal for rush hour.
Paul's parents apartment has a great view looking out over the Thames. This is a very famous location on the river which I later saw in a painting by Turner at the Tate Britain museum. We went down and took a walk along the Thames to go get breakfast. We ate at this little cafe right next to a big grassy park. It was a quintessential London area with red phone booths, brick buildings, tree lined streets etc.
I took the train and the tube from Richmond to my hostel in Hendon on the North Side of London. I know you are supposed to try to stay up until a normal bedtime to get over the jet lag, but there is no way that was going to happen. I went and took a nap at about 1pm (oops I mean 13h00 now that I am in Europe). I definitely needed a few hours of sleep.