New Year in a New Country

Well, I made it. I learned that Zoom Airlines is not so zoomy. I got to know JFK Terminal 4 like the back of my hand because my flight was delayed for 7 hours. Once we got a gate, we waited. Then we were shuttled to another waiting room where we--you guessed it-- waited for a tram to take us to the plane that was parked in some satellite location.

Once I got on the plane, I was graced with a bit of Aunt Scarlett's "good parking spot karma". I ended up sitting in a seat in an empty row, so I was able to get some shuteye when the "fasten seat belt" bell wasn't going on and off. When we arrived at Gatwick, we had to wait for another tram to take us to the gate. I zipped through Immigration (oddly, the non-EU line was shorter than the EU line), went to the correct baggage carousel (unlike the last time I was in London), got all of my bags, and got a ticket to London Bridge. At London Bridge, I met up with Greg who delivered Anne's keys. I knew that if I tried to maneuver the Underground with that amount of luggage, it would be a major ass-ache. So I took a cab to Anne's place, which was relatively nearby, and lugged my stuff up the 4 flights of stairs.

I took a shower, read for a while, and took a small nap (DOH!) until the fireworks went off. I went out onto Anne's balcony where I was able to see a few reflections of the show in the building across from me. The buildings were too tall to see much more, but the London Gherkin was in it's full glory (see the phallic building in the middle third of this very dark picture).

That's all for now. More soon.