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To get to London, we first had to get through the border control. I didn't even bother attempting to take pictures. A young man quickly yelled at any people with cameras out in this section. It was off limits, for some reason. Heaven forbid you take a picture of a stack of blank forms, or the endless queues. Eric and I busied ourselves with filling out the entry forms. This was, of course, easier said than done. I'd completed the form once to discover that it said that I had to use all capital letters. So, I redid the form, but made another silly mistake. I probably went through about three or so forms before I got it right. Eric took a similar amount. I insisted he use a black pen. I told him, "I'm not going to wait for you if you get held up because you insisted on using a red pen."

Eventually we made it through the winding lines to the woman who would be allowing us into the country. Then began the onslaught of questions. How long will you be staying in the country? Where will you be staying? Why haven't you found a place yet? How much money do you have on you? How much money do you have in your bank accounts?

I told her that all that information and mentioned that we would be in London for a few days then would head to the mainland europe as we had a railpass. Then she asked to see the freakin' rail pass! Talk about giving us the fifth degree! Begrudgingly, she stamped our passports and allowed us to enter the U.K.

Next, we meandered through the labyrinthine passages to the main corridor at Heathrow and took a moment to rest. I pulled out the spinach tortilla pizza things from Trader Joes and we both at those and our British Air cookies. Eric went off to a hotel booking information booth and tried to get some information. After a while he came back and got me to come back to the booth with him. A friendly gentleman helped look up some hostels in the London area. He dialed out to some numbers, and held the phone to me. The phone rang and rang, but no one picked up. We had similarly poor luck with other numbers. I wrote down some numbers anyway. We asked for information regarding the subway. He directed us to another counter down the way.

At said counter, we asked about how to get to London. The lady showed us some fancy brochures for their express route to London. However, they didn't manage the cheaper subway lines. The woman at the desk directed us to go down to the subway and inquire there as she couldn't help us with that.

We went over to the large sliding glass doors that divided the terminal from the subway, but we weren't absolutely sure we were heading the right direction. We asked again if we were heading the right way, got the go ahead, then descended the untold number of stairways down into the depths of the earth. Eventually we found ourselves waiting in line at a little booth by the subway line--the 'tube'. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the various options for tickets. The African-amer.... er... African-uk-an behind the desk helped us choose a couple passes that would get us to London. Eric wasn't sure about this, but deferred to my judgment. I whipped out the AMEX and paid for them, but the man didn't have a pen to sign the slip. I whipped out a pen I had in my pocket, and after signing, gave the pen to him. It was one of those Division of Boating pens that the Ala Wai Harbor uses in their office. I think I had accidentally mistaken it for one of my pens at the last meeting in the Ala Wai. The gentleman thanked me profusely for the pen, and we were off. Eric and I caught the tube toward London. As we were at the end of the line, we didn't have to worry about getting one in the right direction.

"Mind the gap! Mind the gap!" the PA system said politely but sternly.

The train rumbled and bumped along through the suburban areas outside of London, occasionally giving brief glimpses of the countryside. Eric found a local paper laying on a seat and busied himself with seeing what it held. It was one of those free papers which are distributed everywhere. As Michael Jackson had died a few days previously, the paper had various pictures of the pop star on the front cover. Despite the racket, we even managed to chat with an older couple that were in the car with us.

The ride from Heathrow airport to London took about 45 minutes, longer than I expected. We rode the tube all the way to Piccadilly Circus, which for some reason resonated with me. I wasn't sure what I expected to find there, but I'd heard the name on TV. It sounded fun!

"Mind the gap! Mind the gap!" the PA system said politely but sternly... again.

We minded our gaps off the tube train. For a moment I was perplexed at where to go. Where did they keep the bloomin' exit signs? Eventually I spotted the little black signs and pulled Eric in that direction. Through the various tunnels, we passed musicians playing in little hemi-circles set aside by the city for their performances. Apparently some of the tubes had once been used for bomb shelters. So its no wonder that they're such a massive labyrinth down there. We ascended to the surface on a series of escalators. These weren't your ordinary escalators either, they were huge! So while we may have only used three escalators to get up, they were probably a hundred feet up for each one.

And finally, finally we passed through the turnstiles, walked up the final bit of steps to Piccadilly Circus and our first real sight of London.

And we had absolutely no idea where we were, or where to go from there.