London, UK

This week, I'm visiting several cities in Europe.  I start the week in London, England.  I'm only here for about 24 hours, so the post won't be too long.  Also, I'm a little jet-lagged, so my focus on writing isn't as strong as usual ; )

I arrived into the city of London via the Heathrow Express train, which takes you right to Paddington Station - one of my favorites, here in town.

It's a big, spacious building, just what you would expect from a traditional train station here.  There are plenty of stores and restaurants - and even a Krispy Kreme outlet!  You're probably familiar with the name of this station, from the children's books about Paddington Bear.  There's a stall here, so you can buy all the Paddington Bear memorabilia that you'd like:

After waiting a while for my hotel room to be ready, I headed to lunch with one of my employees.  We spent a couple of hours talking about some new responsibilities that I've asked him to assume.

Before dinner with other employees this evening, I had an hour to myself.  I decided to head to my one of my favorite stores in London - Forbidden Planet. As you can guess, it's all about science fiction, comic books and action figures.  Geek Alert:  my kind of place:

Storefront display (from previous trip)

Star Wars, Terminator and Indiana Jones

Statuettes and sculptures from Green Lantern

I only WISH I could fit this in my suitcase - a Hurley figure from Lost

The requisite Star Wars statues and figures - some priced over $200!

It's a good thing that I don't have any room in my suitcase - that barrier prevented me from buying much of anything to add to the collection.  Hopefully, I can find some of this stuff back in the U.S.

While walking back to the nearest subway station (called "The Tube" here in the UK), I came upon a fun little neighborhood.  It seems like the English set this up, especially for me:

I only serve the best Tri-tip and Corned Beef sandwiches at my shop!

I thought my "yard" was really colorful, and quite lovely ; )

On my way back to the hotel, I walked past the busiest part of town - as well as the biggest "tourist trap" for all of London - Picadilly Circus:

For dinner, my employees took me to a great restaurant in Covent Garden.  This is a great part of London that has a ton of theaters and restaurants.  Back at Picadilly, there are a ton of "half price" ticket stores for all of these plays and musicals.  Usually, this is a fun part of my London visits, but since I'm only here one day, I didn't get to see any of these shows:

In Covent Garden, Apple just opened up an amazing Apple Store.  Of course, I had to go check it out:

Apple's picture is much better than mine...

That's it from London!  From here, I'm on my way to Switzerland...