Not Our Cup of Tea

We got up at 4 AM yesterday to be ready to drive to Cape Town International Airport by 5 AM.  Our flight to Johannesburg was leaving at 7:30 AM.  We are making our trip this time based on cashing in a great deal of our "Frequent Flier Miles" on American Airline which partners with British Airlines in flying to South Africa.  The "price" for each of our business class tickets was a reasonable 80,000 miles PER PERSON in each direction for a total of 160, 000 for me and 160,000 for Irene per round-trip ticket.  The unfortunate thing is that you are at the airlines mercy about WHEN you can fly.  They only set aside "X" amount of frequent flier seats on any one flight.  This meant that we had to be on this 7:30 AM flight because it was the only one that had any seats available on it EVEN THOUGH we ordered these tickets 11 month in advance.  So, that means we were stuck with an 11 hour layover in Johannesburg.  Oh well.  The REAL problem was that when we got to Jo'burg at 9:30 AM we found out that the British Airways Business Class lounge didn't open until 3:00 PM.  This is because BA only has the one flight a day from Jo'burg to London at 7:10 PM.  So we got to wait in the airport for about 5 1/2 hours until the lounge opened.  Irene got some shopping done.  I got some walking in.

Our flight out of Jo'burg was on an AirBus 380.  It's a monstrous plane.  It's a double decker.  The first time I've ever been on one with 2 decks.

I don't sleep well in planes so I mainly watched the video player at my seat.  First off I watched "Live Free or Die Hard."  Formulaic to the Max, but still worth the watch.  Then I watched the 3rd "season" of the BBC "Sherlock Holmes" series  with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.  All told that totaled up to a bit more than 7 hours of the flight.  You throw in another 2 for dinner and breakfast and I got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep.  There was a great flight attendant onboard that was taking care of our aisle.  She was an Irish girl name Sinead from Dublin.  A good flight attendant can really make a flight and a bad one is a drag.  So - Thanks to Sinead.

We got into Heathrow at about 5:00 AM and with virtually no one there, immigration and customs went really quickly.  We were out and in a cab by 6:00 AM to travel to Dmitri and Hazuki's apartment and arrived at 6:30.  Irene and Hazuki talked (Irene had gotten about 3-4 hours of sleep on the flight) and I grabbed a nap until 8 AM.

We decided to do a little touring of London today.  We went past parliament and past #10 Downing Street.  Well, actually, you can't even get in the same postal code as the prime minister's home anymore.  With all the terrorist fears they have the whole block of Downing Streent behid 1 1/2" high tensile strength 10 foot high fencing with many, many, many police with fully automatic weapons in tow.  SO, that was a let down.  Next up Trafalger Square, Hall of Justice and Fleet Street (the old "newspaper" publishing street), White Chapel area (Jack the Ripper territory), 221b Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes Address) and finally the Thames River Cruise from the London Eye (a monstrously large ferris wheel) to the Naval College at Greenwich (as in "Greenwich Mean Time").  Here's a short video of part of our River Tour:

One of the buildings we walked past today was the old "South African House."  Since countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand are technically still part of the United Kingdom and the "Commonwealth of Nations" they don't have "Embassies" in London they have "Houses."  South Africa USED to be part of the United Kingdom also but was given its freedom in the late 50s.  So it's "house" now is essentially a South African information center.  Here's a couple pictures of it:

The last place we went today was the British Naval College.  Below are a couple of interesting pictures.  The first is one of the buildings at the college.  I'm pretty sure it says "King George III king and regent, 1814."  

I had to take it because King George III was King of England during the American Revolution and the War of 1812.  Considering we defeated the Brits twice by that time, I'd say they sure did NEED a better college to train their naval officers.  Good decision "Georgie Porgie Puddin' Pie"  (YES, that Mother Goose rhyme IS ABOUT HIM.)

The 2nd picture below was pointed out to me by an elderly "usher" at the Naval College Museum.

There were 21 men from the United States that entered the British Naval College between the beginning of the war in 1939 and America's entering the war after Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.  This plaque remembers their service.  Thank you sir for making this known to me and thanks to Great Britain for honoring this valiant men who came to their aid in that time of need.

Having walked, bussed and subwayed around a great deal of "downtown London" today it reminds me how little I like B-I-G cities.  I got nothing against London in particular - New York, Chicago - they ALL fit the bill - TOO many people; TOO much traffic; TOO much concrete; not ENOUGH green space; not ENOUGH fresh air.  It just isn't our cup of tea (British Pun fully intended).