Day 1 - Let the Games Begin

Hello hello!  I made it safe and sound to old foggy London town!  Total travel time was 14hrs, which included a brief layover in Detroit.  Perhaps it was the excitement and anticipation for the trip or splitting the flight into two parts or even the numerous complimentary in-flight movies, but it was a short 14hrs.  It felt like I went to bed Thursday night and woke up a few short hours later in London.

London bound

 

My last view of U.S. soil until the end of September

 

Copyright infringement...'Be Safe' is my line!

London from the air

 The tube

 

After a short tube ride from Heathrow to the Earl's Court area, I checked into the Garden View Hotel, a humble establishment in the affluent area of Nevern Square.   It's about a 20-min walk from Stamford Bridge stadium, home to Saturday's showdown between Chelsea FC and Newcastle United.  Now, I've stayed in some small rooms before and I'm not a hotel snob, but my room at the Garden View takes the cake.  The amenities are nice and the building is well-kept, but it's just ridiculously small.  The elevator, aka the lift, fits one person and a bag and my room is the size of a walk-in closet.  Literally, it's the width of my arm span.  None the less, I don't plan on spending much time in the room anyway so I'll make do. 

The front of the Garden View Hotel

The neighborhood in Earl's Court around the hotel

Room with a view - thankfully I have a nice view of the park across the street

 

For lunch I dove right into the local cuisine - sausage, apple and onion pie with chips and steamed veggies

My mini room - it's the width of my arm span

Day one on the ground in London included getting a lay of the land and scoping out the Earl's Court area, which consists of numerous restaurants, bars, pubs and taverns...pretty much the same as any other part of London.  After a brief rest at the hotel I spent the evening in the Piccadilly Circus area enjoying a few pints and grabbing a bite to eat in China Town.  I also did a bit of site seeing and saw Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and some of the remnants of the Olympics.

Piccadilly Circus tube station

Masses of people walking around Piccadilly, it's like the Times Square of London

The Royal Crest on the Buckingham Palace gate

Buckingham Palace

St. James Park across from Buckingham Palace

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben from a distance

The streets of the West End area were lined with lively pubs and restaurants on Friday night

 

I grabbed a bite at Super Star in China Town

Leicester Square in downtown London

The Round House in Leicester Square was my pub of choice for night one

The first pint of many that I plan to enjoy on this trip

Day two is the first soccer match.  With my favorite team being Newcastle and the team I'm most familiar with from a work standpoint being Chelsea, this match is the perfect way to kickoff (pun complelty intended) this soccer excursion.  I'll be sure to get plenty of photos and video to share.

And finally, I've been enjoying some good music on this trip - both my own iPod/iPad and from different external sources - so I plan to share various songs along the way.  In honor of my arrival in England, the first song is from one of the biggest British pop and R&B singers from the '70s and '80s, Billy Ocean's "Get out of My Dreams and Get Into My Car."  Enjoy!