Day 1 - London

Greetings from jolly old England! Today is Day 1 of my European vacation, and the day got off to a good start. The flight from BWI was pretty uneventful and consisted of watching The Dark Knight (awesome - love, love, LOVE Christian Bale) and most of one episode of The Wire, with some sleep in between. We left on-time, arrived a bit early, and got to land at the new terminal at Heathrow which had much shorter border security lines than the last time I was here.

Lara was there to meet Liz and I at the gate, and it was cool to see how pregnant she is! Granted, she is quite skinny to begin with, so had she not opened her coat, it would not be very apparent that she is expecting. After some confusion on the part of the not-so-helpful Heathrow employees, we were able to find the shuttle to the rental car facility, got the car, and then headed to Lara's flat. After dropping off our stuff at the flat, we headed to Covent Garden for lunch at Punjab, an Indian restaurant Lara had taken me to last year. Lunch was terrific - veggie samosas, papadams, chicken tikka masala, and naan. Indian is probably the most popular ethnic food, and if it's all similar to what we sampled today, it's for good reason.

We went back to Lara's flat after lunch, and Liz and I took naps to get over the remaining jet lag. We got up around 6'ish to get ready for dinner, which was at a fish and chips place. Now, my previous experience consisted of fish sticks or heavily breaded fish-shaped substances that have been deep-fried, along with thick cut fries. North Sea Fish had the high end version of this staple, with fish that was actually in the shape of a fish (skin was still on). It was really good with the half bottle of malt vinegar that I poured on. I had the sherry trifle which had a different custard from what I was expecting (seemed more cheese-like than custard), but was still very good. At dinner, we met up with a bunch of Lara's friends along with Britney and JP. It was great to see them and catch up on their new life in London. We headed to the pub across the street after dinner, and I had another pint of Guinness and got caught up on all the gossip.

All in all, it was a great start to the trip! Tomorrow, it's off to Stonehenge and Bath to see the sights.