London Diaries - Day 2 - December 9, 2011

December 9th, 2011 – Day 2  

To be in an international flight is pretty cool!! Great food and beverages, cool movies to watch and great music to listen! The Lufthansa’s aircraft departured while I was listening to Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same…ain’t that cool?  But the coolest thing was that the flight have had no turbulences. It was a tiring but enjoyable flight, thank God!!

The plane arrived in Frankfurt at 2 p.m and 50 minutes later in London. In less than an hour I would be in a foreign land, completely on my own…and it would be the first time that I would speak English with other people…what a challenge!! And the first conversation was hilarious. I was asked to fill the immigration form during the flight, but I didn’t have a pen. So I asked the flight attendant:

Me - Do you have a pen?

FA – Yes, just a minute, sir!

Two minutes later she would return with a Warsteiner beer:

FA – Here’s your beer, sir?

Me – That’s Ok, but I really wanted a pen to fill in this form!

FA – Ok, I will bring one for you sir, just a minute.

There was a man laughing seated next to me, probably a German. After the flight attendant left he said to me:

German - I understood what you said. Now you have a beer and a pen…and you don’t have to pay for it!

Me - Ain’t that cool?

The flight arrived sound and safe in Heathrow at 4 p.m. Then I started to search for my luggage at the aiport and after 30 minutes everybody that was on the plane had left the place and I stood there without my luggage. I went to Lufhtansa’s help desk and they told me that the luggage was coming in another flight and promised me to deliver it in the hotel, later in the evening. So I went to the hotel by tube. I choose Windsor Hotel in South Kenisngton, just a 3 minutes walk from Earl’s Court station. The accommodation was pretty simple. There was a single bed, a shower, a closet and one mirror…I didn’t need anything else.

I walked around the neighborhood while I was waiting for my luggage. I discovered a place with internet access, checked my e-mails and said hello to my wife in Brazil via skype. Everything seemed to be ok, despite the bad weather. It wasn’t easy to trade over 30º C for 4º in less than 24 hours, but I got used to it quickly.

I returned to hotel hoping to have clothes to change after a long shower, but there wasn’t any sign of my luggage. I was hungry and I decided to stop at Bill Wyman’s Sticky Fingers, a nice café owned by former Rolling Stones’ bassist. Nice atmosphere, great food and great beers. I took really nice photos there, helped by the waitress! I returned to the hotel at 11p.m. and, thank God, my luggage was there. The warrior needed to rest a little bit. Saturday would be a long day…


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