All is well in London Town

The plane lands. I turn on my phone. Up pops a text mes­sage from a UK number.

“Dri­ver. Wait­ing at arrivals.”

Once I put the cus­toms desk behind me, its a quick shot to lug­gage claim then free­dom.  There’s a man in a slick black suit, dark shades, hold­ing a sim­ple piece of paper — ‘Lanier’

He takes my 2 pieces of lug­gage with a neat “Fol­low me, Mr. Lanier.”  He uses the French pro­nun­ci­a­tion — splendid.

The goal of the car ser­vice was to avoid the inevitable mis­for­tune involv­ing a sleep-deprived trav­eller, 2 suit­cases labeled “heavy”, and the Fri­day morn­ing rush hour on the Lon­don pub­lic tran­sit system.

We get to the car.  Um — is this what I ordered?  The trunk of the black Mer­cedes E320 lifts, in go my bags, the back door is opened, and I silently get in the car…exhaustingly glee­ful.  I expected at BEST a mini­van.  I don’t complain.

Lean­ing against the cool glass win­dow of the back­seat — I take in the city for the next 45 min­utes.  As we get closer to the city cen­ter, I begin to see every­thing I love and missed about Lon­don.  The busy streets.  The polite road signs.  The multi-faceted faces of the pedes­tri­ans.  Want a melt­ing pot?  Go to London.

Weary yet wide-eyed — its been a year since the last trip to Lon­don.  The air is refresh­ing.  The cool weather is wel­com­ing.  I start to melt into the city, feel­ing myself slip into the famil­iar shoes of the city.  I’ll be a local by tomor­row — tak­ing my free Evening Stan­dard at the tube sta­tion — meld­ing the ver­nac­u­lar into my conversations.

The car slides up to the front entrance of the hotel.  I wasn’t expect­ing such a sleek hotel — espe­cially for the rea­son­able chunk of change I laid down a few weeks ago for it.

Check-in.

Ele­va­tor up.

Exhale.

All is well in Lon­don town.