Oh My Oh My....The London Eye

Sometime not long ago British Airways decided it would be cool to have a Ferris Wheel sort of structure that would raise people in space like capsules hundreds and hundreds of feet above the earth. They call it here...the London Eye. It is quite amazing to see the entire city from this
capsule and after seeing this structure from far away......I just had to do it. It is about a 30 minute ride round trip and if all people get on and off as they are told, the thing never stops moving. You actually get in one of these capsules as they are moving. The good looking guy there in yellow might look familiar. It probably is a good thing Peg was not with me as we raised to the top. The bottom of these things are almost clear glass around you and it sort of a freaky site looking down. My ticket came with a complete brochure about how it was designed and built, and all the things you see when you are on top. This was one of my highlights of the day! I learned another off term today.....they don't have sidewalks here, they are called foot paths. People have to stay on foot paths and bikes have to stay on the road. I also learned all about the tubes today. The tube will take you anywhere. i got a 3 day pass to ride as much as I want for 15 pounds. The circle line does just that.....goes in a circle around the city. I took the the circle line from Westminster station to the Mansion House station. I got off there to see St. Paul Cathedral and then went to Guildhall to find Blackwell House where I am going tomorrow to meet our friends from Cassapian. Every building here seems to have a house name...there is Douglass House, Blackwell House, Vincent House, etc. It is sort of a name for a building instead of the address of the building. Some buildings do have numbers though. Tomorrow I am working at 30 Buckingham Gate....in the Cayzer House. The zip codes are cool too. The first 3 letters of the zip code tell you right away what part of the city is being referred to. I am staying and working in SW1 (westminster is in the south west portion of the city...district 1) . After learning how to use the tube and riding it a bit, I went to speakers corner in Hyde Park. I thought this was going to be some people getting up and speaking about something they were unhappy about but it turns out to be a bit of a historic place where this was done years ago. It may be being done now...but it wasn't when I was there. I bought an ice cream cone, sat in a chair in the park, and for a moment I just enjoyed the moment. I enjoyed the fact that I have had this chance to visit a country so very far away. London is 6,400 air miles from Chicago. This puts me about 9,000 miles away from my son.....and farther away than I have ever been from those I love. This is a nice play to live I must say.....it took me until about 4PM to realize I have been all over this city today...walking for miles in the city, in the residential areas, and at the touristy places too...and NOT once did I ever see a homeless person, a person soliciting money, any garbage, any scary people....I never even saw an unhappy person! There is something very strange about this place! Anyway....I have tons of pictures and will post more too. Now it is time to focus on work, and to get ready for meeting people tomorrow who are more interested in work issues than they are all the things I am getting to experience while being here. I hope to have more time free because now that I know the tube system...getting around to see anything and everything is all the more easier. Even though today is 6-6-6, the day could not have been better!