Out of town

I leave first thing Friday morning for 2 and a half weeks in London

DON'T RUN ON THE UNDERGROUND!!!!!

You'll poke an eye out with that thing.

I'd rather lose an eye than have my head pumped full of bullets.

with a short side trip to Paris hopefully.

A coworker just got back from a 10 day trip to London, Amsterdam, and
Switzerland. He spent $3300. hmmm. Europe _used_ to be cheap. He had
9 hours to spend in London, and he did a ton of homework, figuring out
what he wanted to do. So he bought a pass, saw the Tate, the Eye, the
Tower, and everything else on his plan.

Just before he left home, he'd called a Brit coworker and asked if
there was any last minute advice. "Yeah. Beware of pickpockets."
So, my friend was there for 9 hours, and just before he left for
Gatwick, someone on the tube unzipped his trouser pocket and lifted
his digital camera.

9 hours to do all that is pretty good.
Pickpockets are all over, especially in crowds.
If I feel a bump any time my hand automatically grabs my wallet and
anything else of value.
I'm not expecting it to be cheap, in fact it already isn't but I have
waited a long time for this. The last time I saw my cousins we were
all kids. Now we could all be grandparents.

I'll be doing all the regular touristy stuff and visiting relatives I
haven't seen in 30 years. Make that 31. Taking in a couple of soccer
games (expensive over there - $370 Cdn for 2 people for 2 games)
Hopefully I can wrangle some time to look at a few Euro bikes.

Just look? I'd rent one an have a nice bimble or two.

Plus of course, the obligatory visit to Harlet dealerships for the
tourist t-shirts.

It might be fun if you could meet face to face with some of the UKRM
crowd. They're having a meet (Beginning Of Summer Meet or BOSM if you
want to web-search for it) on April 8th and 9th at the Black Horse Inn in
Hulland Ward, Derbyshire.

Not exactly close to London but not a million miles away. They're a
fun crowd if you just remember to shout 'cont!' every few minutes.

The sell harlots over there? I have got to pay a visit.

you could get that here .....

These are the special tourist ones with logos.

Brand names, eh? Kinky!

I've found that you just can't get one with a nice life-size
tatoo of the Queen on her ass over here.

I'll be taking the laptop but I doubt I'll show up much.
Try to keep the arguments going a couple of weeks for me.

Somehow I don't think that will be a problem.

Good luck, Bob, in your endevours while in Europe. Work or
play or both? If you can't connect, no biggey, let us know
how things went when you return.

No work.
None.
I'm done with that.

All play.
The usual sightseeing, soccer, trips and visiting relatives I haven't
seen in over 30 years.

31 years, huh? Sounds a little like me. I didn't get back to California to
visit relatives for 25 years. Hope you have a nice vacation.

Thanks. I have a break in family responsibility between children and
grandchildren.