London - First Day

Actually it’s pretty simple. You take the train from Gatwick to Victoria Station there you catch a cab to your hotel. I’ve done that a lot of times.

Today I stood in the queue for 55 minutes before I caught a cab. That never happens. No matter how many people waiting in queue I’ve never waited longer than 10 minutes. A never-ending river of taxis flows past sucking customers right off the sidewalk and onto the traffic jam that also seems never-ending. Today there was sometimes a much as five minutes between cabs.

When mine finally picked me up he told me that since the bombings last Thursday, traffic is jammed beyond anything that he has even seen. The problem is that much of the traffic is police van, sirens going full blast, and racing to ever-changing unknown locations. Any of the streets can be closed at any moment for any length of time, causing the taxi drivers, who know the shortest quickest route to anywhere in London, to lose their edge.

Today was also a day of mourning. There was a vigil at Trafalgar Square. There was a moment of silence with mourners all over the London, in fact all of Britain. That, of course, froze a lot of London throughout the day.

A lot of the new traffic is people who now drive their cars to work. This cost them £8 a day in fees plus whatever the outrageous parking fees might be. People are afraid to take the public transportation.

He said his daughter was on the train that was bombed at King’s Cross. She didn’t get hurt, but it took her close to an hour to get out of the underground. He said that she saw things that no one should see. She told him things that I don’t want to document.

She has a good job, and was to return to work today, but at the last minute she couldn’t get on the train. He doesn’t know when she will ever be able to, and he is afraid that she will lose her job. Her life is changed forever.

I didn’t know what to say.

c: 2710 (18 hour travel day) s: 12895