Greetings from London

At Newark airport one receives a plastic (metallic colored) knife with a regular metal fork when eating at a sit-down restaurant. On the plane, we received regular metal knives. 

The veg/vegan meal on the plane always comes with a cup of water, but the regular meals come with none.

The majority of British beer is not that exciting to me. I do like the London Porter very much, though. 

I'm currently at the Cleveland Arms, near our hotel, waiting for Jeff to finish watching Dr. Who. He is SO excited to be seeing it first run on BBC while in England. They have Leffe on tap at this bar. I ordered a pint, which may not have been the wisest choice, considering I could have had a half pint. And considering that I just drank a shot of espresso before this. My tummy hates me. (note: I don't drink coffee normally.)

Our hotel room is very small by American standards, about the same size as the one we had in Kyoto, actually. The bathroom in this one is basically a shower with a toilet and a sink in it. (Things get a bit wet.)

The night we arrived, we went out to Hampton Court to meet up with a colleague of mine. We went to a cozy pub where a beagly mutty creature lifted his leg on the fake Xmas tree. An old dude with long hair, sitting by the fire, said to the dog's owner, when he came over to clean up the mess, "I'm a puppy!" The dog's owner, who half-heartedly swabbed at the floor beneath the tree, replied, "Well, I'm not housetraining you!" (Note: the dog was no puppy either.)

At a pub this evening an actual puppy made off with Jeff's hat while tahe owner sat back and laughed. 

When crossing streets in London, even after reading the signs indicating to look left or right, I cannot help but quickly glance in the direction from which my gut expects a car to appear.