I’m definitely feeling the need for a bike ride! It’s 12:38pm and we’re on the Picadilly “underground” (which is presently very much above ground) on our way to Heathrow Airport. It appears our upgrades for the flight home aren’t going to happen so it’s 8+ hours in cattlecar to Chicago and then 4 hours to SF.

We did do one more thing this morning; a trip to the London Eye (their giant ferris wheel) which would have been a lot more impressive had someone bothered to clean the windows. As leave we’re seeing the sun in full force for the first time. Seeing it, not feeling it… it’s still in the mid-30s (which does in fact feel much nicer than the low-30s, at least until the wind blows).

It’s definitely time to come home! We miss our kids, I miss riding, heck I even miss the shop. I miss everything but flying. And that I can’t do much about.

I’m definitely feeling the need for a bike ride! It’s 12:38pm and we’re on the Picadilly “underground” (which is presently very much above ground) on our way to Heathrow Airport. It appears our upgrades for the flight home aren’t going to happen so it’s 8+ hours in cattlecar to Chicago and then 4 hours to SF.

We did do one more thing this morning; a trip to the London Eye (their giant ferris wheel) which would have been a lot more impressive had someone bothered to clean the windows. As leave we’re seeing the sun in full force for the first time. Seeing it, not feeling it… it’s still in the mid-30s (which does in fact feel much nicer than the low-30s, at least until the wind blows).

It’s definitely time to come home! We miss our kids, I miss riding, heck I even miss the shop. I miss everything but flying. And that I can’t do much about.

Yesterday morning my wife and I were in the land of a pervasive warm sun and relatively long days and drinks that were rarely as cold as you’d like (I don’t think Egyptians have an aversion to ice like the French; rather, I think it’s at best a concept for them, something maybe they’ve seen in commercials). By the afternoon we had more ice than we knew what to do with, mostly under our feet as we walked the streets of a London that Rush Limbaugh would point to as proof that global warming is a myth.

Of course our room in London is stiflingly hot, on the fifth floor of a hotel that I think was originally just four stories (the elevator only goes to the 4th floor and the ceiling slopes like an attic such that I have to duck to get in on one side of the bed). But after spending a few hours out in the cold today, I’ve decided I prefer too-hot to too-cold.

My kids would think our hotel is located in paradise, being across the street from both a “Paul” (exceptional chain of French bakery/sandwich shop) and a Starbucks! We chose Paul this morning for breakfast, and their Mocha and Hot Chocolate did not disappoint!

Then we were off on the Underground to Leicester Square to pick up last-minute discounted theater tickets to “Love Never Dies” (the sequel to Phantom of the Opera) tonight, and in-between catch a train to Solisbury to see the most-incredible cathedral and then a short bus ride from there to Stonehenge.

Rest? I’ll rest plenty when I’m six feet under. Besides, if I keep moving, I won’t freeze in place! I’ve already warned my daughter (Becky, who’s holding down the shop in Redwood City) that, if we see a forecast for cold weather back home, she’s going to have to stall the credit card companies for awhile because we’re going to spend the rest of the winter in Australia!

I don’t think the cold would be so bad if I was more active, meaning out on a bike. Which a surprising number of Londoners are, at all hours and most clearly in all weather. These are dedicated cyclists, no question! And what a difference between traffic I’n Egypt (totally chaotic) and England, where the manner in which people ride & drive defines orderly. In Egypt, horns are used almost like a greeting (the reality is that I think they use horns like some bats use screeches; a sort of sonar that tells them their position relative to others). In England, if you hear a car horn I think you’re supposed to report it to the police as an emergency.

Not sure yet what’s on tap for tomorrow; in some ways this trip reminds me of when I travel I’n France with my son, refining each upcoming day on the night before. Not so easy on me, but gives the illusion I know what I’m doing.

More soon- –Mike–

I’ve always wanted to use that line (from an old Firesign Theater piece). That’s kinda how this morning has felt so far, as we’re handed off from one representative of STI Travel to another, and you’re not absolutely certain whether you’re in the right car headed to the airport or if you’re going to make the news back home as an American couple kidnapped in the middle east.

We left one bag back at the hotel for when we return from our Nile River cruise in a few days, but even then you’re wondering if that’s the last time you’ll see that bag. It’s a strange feeling; they speak English pretty well but you’re left wondering if it’s well enough to be helpful but completely misunderstood.

Probably because of the number of airport transfers involved, you’re never seeing the same face (of the tour company) for very long. You just go through the airport and hotel lobbys looking for the guys in the white shirts with orange ties. So far, it’s worked! Navigating a country via orange ties. Who knew?

Right now we’re back at Cairo’s airport, 8:10am, no more than six hours after we left the place last night, er, I mean earlier this morning. Security is a bit less tight than we’re used to; you go through a metal detector that beeps and they don’t even look up. And for an inter-Egypt flight, you don’t even need to show any ID.

OK, the board now shows our flight to Aswan as delayed, like every other flight here, due to weather (fog). It doesn’t say for how long, but curiously the guy responsible for picking us up from the airport last night and delivering us here this morning knew details about our flight long before anything posted to the departure boards. And that’s the thing about Egypt so far. Everybody knows the secret. But you.

<4 hours later>

We are finally in the air; we could have gotten a whole lot more than 3 hours of sleep had we known our flight would run so late. Hopefully our Nile boat will still be waiting for us. We had heard references to Egypt Air’s schedules as being not carved in stone and that’s an understatement. “Fly casual” comes to mind. It’s like living in the country with a dose of inappropriate formality. Why pretend to be formal in the first place?

Also, why have monitors at the gate when the info displayed is always wrong?

We’ve made it to our Nile cruise ship, a different one than originally planned since that one was scheduled to sail away just as we landed, which would mean not seeing anything in Aswan. Now, I’ll confess to knowing nothing about what there is to see in Aswan, but guess we’ll find out what we didn’t miss shortly.