I don't know which made me happier...knowing that the long flight to London was over or knowing that I was actually in London, well Gatwick anyway. I was glad that we flew at night so I was able to get some cat naps in between the typical noises you hear on a plane. We took a train from Gatwick to London and I was so glad we did.
I had not wanted my blog to be a minute by minute run down of my day, which would certainy become boring after awhile; rather I envisioned it to be for sharing some interesting sites and people that I run across each day in my journey. For example,I could tell you about how difficult it was to lift our heavy bags up onto the train (thank you to the perfect gentleman who assisted us) and how challenging it was to maneuvre the bags through the aisle to the back of the car to find a much needed seat, only to be sweetly ushered by the porter to keep moving five cars back because we had an orange ticket, which meant we needed to go to the red seats (second class), not the blue seats (first class). I wish I had counted how many empty blue seats there were on our way to the red seats. No worries. This little adventure lead me to share a table with a couple who is the focus of this post on my first day in London. The unlikely couple, a red haired Irish man with a gentle voice who wore a claddagh on his left ring finger (not that I was looking), and a petite woman from Singapore who had long raven black hair, were here from Chicago. After some general small talk about travel, our conversation turned to submarines, particularly one he had recently visited in New Orleans. He was fascinated with the bravery of the men who have historically volunteered to spend some time in their lives on submarines. When I shared that I had recently watched an interesting documentary on the CSS H.L.Hunley, his face became filled with excitement and he immediately began telling me about the book he is writing. It seems Dr. Pete Millar is writing a biography about the legendary men and women of the underwater world, and that the man who discovered the Hunley, Ralph Wilbanks, is one of the legends in his book (and is currently in London at the time of this post). When I asked for his name, telling him that I would be blogging about our conversation, he eagerly provided me with his website. It sounds like a very interesting book and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Dr. Millar. When I have my own media center, I will contact him to come for an author visit, or at least a virtual visit via Skype. Please visit
www.divingwithlegends.com to learn more about his work.
I had not wanted my blog to be a minute by minute run down of my day, which would certainy become boring after awhile; rather I envisioned it to be for sharing some interesting sites and people that I run across each day in my journey. For example,I could tell you about how difficult it was to lift our heavy bags up onto the train (thank you to the perfect gentleman who assisted us) and how challenging it was to maneuvre the bags through the aisle to the back of the car to find a much needed seat, only to be sweetly ushered by the porter to keep moving five cars back because we had an orange ticket, which meant we needed to go to the red seats (second class), not the blue seats (first class). I wish I had counted how many empty blue seats there were on our way to the red seats. No worries. This little adventure lead me to share a table with a couple who is the focus of this post on my first day in London. The unlikely couple, a red haired Irish man with a gentle voice who wore a claddagh on his left ring finger (not that I was looking), and a petite woman from Singapore who had long raven black hair, were here from Chicago. After some general small talk about travel, our conversation turned to submarines, particularly one he had recently visited in New Orleans. He was fascinated with the bravery of the men who have historically volunteered to spend some time in their lives on submarines. When I shared that I had recently watched an interesting documentary on the CSS H.L.Hunley, his face became filled with excitement and he immediately began telling me about the book he is writing. It seems Dr. Pete Millar is writing a biography about the legendary men and women of the underwater world, and that the man who discovered the Hunley, Ralph Wilbanks, is one of the legends in his book (and is currently in London at the time of this post). When I asked for his name, telling him that I would be blogging about our conversation, he eagerly provided me with his website. It sounds like a very interesting book and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Dr. Millar. When I have my own media center, I will contact him to come for an author visit, or at least a virtual visit via Skype. Please visit www.divingwithlegends.com to learn more about his work.
Terrific first day, Sheila! I'll be getting up every morning to read your post :-) KMa
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