ryan kennedy’s blog

After a very long flight where I didn’t get very much sleep and an equally long (okay, not really…but it felt that way) tube ride from Heathrow to Camden Town, I’m finally settled in London. Virgin Atlantic got a few things right on their airline, the interactive entertainment, for instance, is really nice. After flying British Airways to India back in November where they basically set up about a dozen VCR’s, all with poorly tuned tracking, the Virgin setup was really nice. All on-demand stuff including movies, television, music and games. Best of all, the video and sound quality was pretty good. British Airways should call up Virgin and find out who the vendor is for their system. Virgin also offers sending/receiving SMS messages from your seat…although it’s not free (bummer).

Of course, in flight entertainment will only get you so far. The seats were incredibly cramped. I had an aisle seat and was still entirely uncomfortable. The seat in front of me had some sort of box mounted beneath it, taking up about 50% of my legroom so I never really got a chance to stretch out. The person two seats to my left was one Happy Meal shy of 300 pounds, causing the guy one seat to my left to be squeezed over the armrest into my seat. The person in front of me could have had me shampoo his head since with his seat tilted all the way back, he was basically laying in my lap. The guy to my left tried to take out his laptop at one point. He put it on his tray and opened it only to find out that he couldn’t open it far enough to be able to read his screen well. Oh, and did I mention the seat backs are nearly straight up and down? Not comfortable at all. If I fly Virgin again, I think it’s going to have to be only under the condition that I’m upgraded out of “economy” class.

When we arrived in Heathrow, I expected the weather to be pleasant…in other words, I expected it to not be hot. Oddly enough, while working my way through customs and picking up my luggage, it was absolutely sweltering. I don’t think it had anything to do with the weather, I think those areas were either improperly ventilated or someone accidentally left the heater on. I had the same experience when I rode the London Underground. The trains were incredibly uncomfortable. I found myself wishing they’d pause a little longer at each station because the doors would open and the air outside actually felt pretty good. After about 45 minutes, I had finally made it from Heathrow to Kings Cross where I was informed (by the hotel’s directions) to catch the Northern line to Camden Town. Only one problem…I couldn’t because of construction. Instead, I had to hop the Victoria line down one station and pick up the Northern line there and head north two stations to Camden Town. I eventually got there, but between the heat and having to deal with the weekend construction work, I was exhausted by the time I reached Camden.

Camden, however, is neat. I came up to ground level from the Underground right smack into the middle of Camden Market. For those of you who don’t know anything about it, let me describe my first impression. Try to imagine what would happen if Hot Topic took over an entire street. There…you’re probably about 80% accurate with whatever you’ve imagined. I’m not complaining, I actually thought it was pretty cool. A whole bunch of “punk rock guys” handing out flyers to something (evidently my urbanite American threads didn’t impress them enough) while selling “The guy next to me loves cock” shirts. I saw the occasional goth shopping as well.

My hotel is nothing to write home about, but it’s adequate. The room is clean and looks over the lock. It’s Sunday and there’s a huge market in full effect. I’m trying to decide if I should shower and catch a quick nap or shower and then go check out the market. My body says nap…my world traveler self says market. I need to get some food anyway, so hitting the market may not be such a bad idea.

I haven’t decided what I’ll be doing tomorrow yet. Hopefully after a good night’s sleep I’ll be ready to go. I may stay pretty closeby tomorrow just so I can recover a little more. I’m also not sure what to expect on the Underground on a Monday. After that, however, I’m hoping to do at least one day trip outside of London to go see Stonehenge. I’ll be posting photos during the trip. I’ve got a Flickr photo set started for London.

Update: I said earlier that the ventilation may have been what was making things so warm earlier. I’m thinking now that it’s humidity. Yahoo! Weather for London is showing 68% humidity right now. It was clear skies when I arrived and now it’s pretty cloudy. I know rain was supposed to be on the way, so that might explain why it’s so muggy-ish here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 5:56 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.