Day Two: The circus is fun! Let's all go to the circus!

Landed at Heathrow just after 7:00AM. I have no idea what time that was in Edmonton, I think it was very late.
They don't let you take pictures of London from the air, because you're on approach and they demand that all electronics be turned off. Must be a deal with the postcard makers. Conspiracy!

Getting through the pont of entry is insane. At 7 in the morning it took at least 45 minutes, I think it was more. If you have a EU or Swiss passport it's quicker, or if you have a UK passport there's a huge empty lane directly to the point of entry. Everyone else has to go through a maze of crowd-control barriers like a bunch of children waiting for a rollercoaster; except that these people are old and tired and carrying too much carry-on luggage. (The children handle it quite well--they just go to the side of the line near the front and read a book or two while mummy and daddy stand in line.)


Roads in England (the London area, anyway) remind me of Vancouver, until you get out of the immediate area of the city.
When you get out into the countryside it's not really like anything I've seen before. There's a huge, super-modern highway going through farmland that seems ancient: big, beautiful trees everywhere, old buildings, oddly-shaped towns beside strangely-shaped fields full of sheep or cattle or Canola. Then, you hit a renently-developed residential area that looks just like any other suburban residential area, except that 30 seconds later you're back looking at the farmland.