days 1/2: hyderabad, bombay, london

It's been a very hectic couple of days and I'm exhausted. Upon further reflection I probably would have missed my flight on Friday even if my Hyderabad flight had been on time; the connection in Bombay was extremely tight, mostly due to the sheer ineptitude of the connections between the domestic and international terminals. However, I was amazed to note that Hyderabad has discovered the future: they still use old-fashioned squat toilets in the airport (i.e. the kind with a hole in the ground and places for your feet, with a bucket provided to clean yourself with in a way that is inexplicable to someone who likes to use toilet paper)--but their squat toilets now have motion sensors to start automatic flushing. Weird, eh?

So I made it to London, found Walter, Claudia, and Claudia's cousin at the hostel, and promptly went out for a hamburger. It made my stomach hurt, but it was awesome. Today, we had dim sum (!!--but not as good as the Hong Kong Flower Lounge), then walked around a lot, saw Picadilly Circus, St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace, the outside of Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, walked across the Tower Bridge, and saw the Tower of London. The yeoman tour of the Tower was rather hilarious, and we saw the crown jewels--it's wonderful that hundreds of years of British exploitation of the undeveloped world led to such beautiful diamonds as the Koh-i-noor, now set in a gorgeous sceptre. Then we had dinner, and came back to the hostel, which was quite the ordeal since many of the Tube lines that would be most convenient for us were closed for weekend maintenance.

Walter goes back to Scotland tomorrow, and Claudia, the cousin and I are going to do the Tate Modern and something else, probably, before Claudia and I leave for Rome early Tuesday morning. I am much enamored with London on this, my second visit--the first time I came, I thought it was dirty (since I had just arrived from Iowa). But this second time, after spending almost four months in India, it seems to be the cleanest, most wonderful place in the world. I can't wait for Italy!

Okay, this was inane, but I'm running out of time on my connection...more later.