In London

I made it to London Thursday without too much trouble. I'm staying at the Strand Palace Hotel on the Strand, about 5 blocks or so from Trafalgar Square.

I've met up with the attorneys from our London office and my manager who was also visiting until this morning, and we've gone out together the last two nights to British pubs for dinner and a beer or two. Fish and chips has been a popular meal choice; I decided to have a burger last night after a week of pork in one form or another and two servings of fish & chips in 24 hours. We went together to see the musical Wicked at the Apollo theater across the street from Victoria Station (oddly, not in the West End theater district with all the other big name shows). It was very good - there were a few jokes that the phrasing was changed slightly for British idiom; of course, as one of the London attorneys noted, "I didn't hear any accents on stage."



We had our dinner last night at the Sherlock Holmes pub, which is nowhere near to Baker Street, but is directly across from where the original Scotland Yard was located (that was moved at least a mile away to New Scotland Yard nearer to Victoria Station). The pub is dutifully outfitted with renditions of Holmes artifacts, including a room upstairs done up as Holmes' study, and the menu requires some knowledge of A. C. Doyle's stories to understand the references to the meal titles, because otherwise there was really no relation.

I was hoping to get to Westminster Abbey and walk by Parliament, and then come back over to the British Museum for part of the day. One of the attorneys said he'd check in if he comes into the city to watch the England-Scotland rugby match today. I think it's some sort of national tournament going on right now.

Well, time to get going. Apparently the weather is going to cooperate enough not to soak me today and tomorrow, but Monday and Tuesday will be good days to stay inside and work!

Love you all - 5 more days until I'm home again!

Mark