First day

I arrived safely in London, quite excited. After getting my bags, I had a driver there ready to pick me up. It was the first time I had the experience of someone holding a sign with my name on it to pick me up. The driver was hilarious, I do enjoy the British sense of humour. At one point we came to a barrier in the road with a phone next to it, he picked up the phone and talk to the person on the other end via speaker phone. We were simply trying to go 100 yards in front of us, but the person on the phone literally gave 10 steps of directions to get there. My driver pointed and said "lovely, but I can see the building ol chap, might I drive 10 paces forward". I've heard the word "lovely" a lot, and I've only heard "cheerio" once, it wasn't even "cheers".

So then the fun began. That awkward feeling of being in a completely different place and seeing everything from a new perspective. It took me close to 10 minutes to figure out how to lock a door. It may have been longer than 10 minutes. It's a combination of turning keys and pulling up and down on the handle. The real secret is when to pull up.

The sights and sounds are different than DC. The birds look a little different and they sound different too. At one point I could swear it was a young child moaning outside, but I'm pretty sure it was a bird. I sure hope it was.

Oh, the washing machine.First, I must admit that my wife is lovely and I rarely do the laundry. That said, I've done it plenty of times and have a pretty good idea of how those machines work. Well this particular machine has 3 slots in the top and a box of half used 'tablets'. I plan to toss in a tablet to one of the lucky slots and we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll buy a mop today.

My power converters are working perfectly. My laptop is a little fussy about less power, but its fine. Interesting to watch some websites send you alerts about "strange logins". Yahoo doesnt believe its me over here. I've put in a few confirmations now, so hopefully we're good. Google, linkedin and a few others challenged it too.

My bank gave me a cashiers check saying it would be the easiest and most cost effective way to get cash. Not true. I went to 3 banks and none of them want to deal with it. They all recommended a cash exchange, so I tried that and it didnt work either. I ended up using an ATM with a $5 charge and it worked perfectly. One of the banks said "this cash would be ready right about when you leave". I think that was humour, not sure.

In the news, I noticed France banned work-related email after 6pm. Did you see that there or is it because I'm in Europe?

Overall, its such a nice place, it feels great to walk around and the people have been very nice. I'm sure I sound funny and I have to admit that I'm beginning to practice/mumble a British accent to myself. I doubt I'll get brave enough to use it out loud, but its fun to practice.