What I'll miss (and what I won't)

Last London blog post! I can't believe how fast this magical time has gone, but when I look back over my pictures (which I have started to do, in an attempt to organize and identify) I'm pretty happy with all I was able to see and do.

I thought I'd give you a capsule idea of the pluses and (the few) minuses of living in London, starting with the big plus of UK mass transit. All forms are fabulous—trains, tube, buses, boats. I will really miss not having to drive or even have a car. What a better way to get around!

More things I'll really miss:

• nice public toilets! (see yesterday's post for rhapsodic prose in praise of this phenomenon)
• good food, easy to find and of all descriptions, as well as from all over the world. I was able to sample Bangladeshi, who knows how many different kinds of Indian, Thai, Chinese, Greek, the ubiquitous Italian, probably more that I've forgotten and it was all fabulous. Even the British food was good—anyone have a good recipe for mushy peas, which I discovered as a fish and chips side dish and would love to cook at home? Below you can see a corner near my flat, where you have a good pub (blue, on the left), a terrific Greek place (green) and a fabulous Italian one (red). Not to mention the kebab house and the Thai/Chinese place just out of the frame.
• sub-category of good food: fantastic bakeries!
• friendly, helpful, courteous and gracious British people wherever you turn. They are so incredibly well-mannered, even when you're being an ignorant American. And perhaps it's the Obama effect, but I encountered not an iota of anti-American feeling—quite the contrary.
• free museums of unbelievably high quality. This may turn out to be the biggest thing I'll miss; any museums I visit from here on out will have some pretty tough competition to face. On the right is the Natural History Museum.
  
• BBC TV channels of all sorts, but especially BBC News, BBC Parliament, and BBC 4. Not to mention, of course, all the sports, including snooker and darts! I saw an amazing number of well-produced and fascinating documentaries, especially on BBC 4, in addition to several addictive quiz shows (on the left below is a shot from my favorite—Only Connect, which is insanely difficult, but fun). The Parliament channel (a sample on the right below) was very entertaining, especially after I'd toured the place. (Pop quiz: which House is being shown, Lords or Commons? Hint: you can tell from the color of the upholstery.)
  

The list of things I won't miss is pretty short. It includes:

• sore feet and knees from all the walking (although I must admit my legs have never been in better shape)
• the traffic, which makes street crossing a high-adrenaline sport. The appearance of a pedestrian ahead seems to bring out the hot-rodder in all London drivers. Although, to be fair, they almost always stop for you at the Belisha beacons, without which you just couldn't get around at all.
• sunrise at 8 and sunset at 4. I'm sorry, but 8 hours—tops—of daylight is simply not enough.
• high prices. However, to temper this criticism a bit, I don't mind as much paying a little more when you get top-notch service, which you do here, in every kind of establishment from grocery stores to restaurants to underground stations to public loos. And bless their hearts, the £ is taking a nose-dive so maybe on my next visit this won't be so much of a problem.
  

I'll try to post a "back home in Texas" blog post in the next day or two, in between sleeping and getting Christmas decorations up. Hope you all are enjoying your holiday preparations!