In the afternoon I went for a long walk along the Thames. I saw the London Eye for the first time, the big Ferris wheel near the parliament buildings.

I've been in London before, but that's many years ago (some great memories, including my first vacation with friends). I read a lot about the Millenium projects and it was nice to see it.

After dinner I prepared some things for work and now I'm going to sleep.

I went for a walk in the area around the hotel, and had a terribly unhealthy but authentic lunch. I had an "English breakfast" which includes beans, bacon, sausage, eggs and something fried that tasted good but I don't know the name of.

I checked into the hotel -- a cute room with a tiny bed. I plan to go out for walk along the river in a while and I realize that I don't have a large selection of clothes to wear for this weather. I brought shorts and sandals...

It's 11.45 am local time now and I'm in the lobby of my hotel in London. Around 8.30 am we landed at Gatwick airport, and after journey by train and cab I'm now waiting for check-in to start.

I guess in theory I could have rented a car, but I'm quite happy with the train... it's pretty strange to see cars on the left side of the road, especially at crossings. I've been in the U.K. a few times before but I didn't drive yet then so I never really paid it attention. I had to consciously think about where to stand so a cab could stop and pick me up.

The flight was nice. The seat next to me was empty and I slept quite a bit. I had a great hamburger at the airport for dinner, sort of a good-bye to American food for a week.

The Farrington train station.

I am on my way to London today. On Monday and Tuesday I have meetings for my work in our London office. I'm really looking forward to it -- we're talking about some exciting things.

Travel wise, I am as ready as can be. I'm scheduled to arrive at Gatwick Sunday morning local time, 24 hours earlier than I really have to. Should something make me miss my flight from Newark tonight, I can take the next one a day later and still be nicely on time. All the same, my flight from Newark isn't until 8 pm and I'm scheduled to arrive around 5 pm so there's plenty of room for delays.

An example of unexpected incidents is that when we went to the supermarket to pick up some fresh bread, an hour before I was scheduled to leave the house, a police car stopped in front of us and blocked the road. There was a parade just around the supermarket, and all 3 crossings from our house under freeway 147 were blocked by the police. We tried all 3 crossings (in vain), and at the third one we parked and walked and ran towards to supermarket. We quickly picked up the bread and went to pay. When you're in such a hurry everybody seems to be slow, but due to the parade Whole Foods was almost empty so we were done quickly. We ran back to the car and we arrived 10 minutes before the cab picked me up.

At first the flight to Newark seemed to have a short delay, "I just wanna board very leisurely" said the flight attendant, but in the end we arrived on time.

I have the last seat in the plane, and there's nobody next to me which is nice. From the air it is clear to see how the drought of the last months is affecting lakes in North Carolina (there have been severe water restrictions in effect since the summer).

Writing an article for my website. My laptop bag is full with electronics -- camera, webcam, laptop of course, and three different headsets.

The New York area is incredibly densely populated. The view from the airplane window is so different than above North Carolina.

Yesterday evening we went to Andrej's birthday party that he celebrated on a parking lot at Duke.

This may sound like an usual location but this weekend is the weekend that the season tickets for the Duke basketball team are on sale. The basket ball team is Duke's most successful sports team and tickets are in high demand. Students who want those tickets have to "stay in line" for over 48 hours, and on Sunday evening the tickets are distributed. Over the years this weekend has become a big party weekend, and in addition to students staying in tents there are many who choose to rent a big truck or even a RV to spend the weekend as comfortable as possible.

Andrej, a Ukrain national, had brought many Ukrainian snacks and drinks (vodka, of course) and celebrated his birthday in style. We didn't stay until very late but it was fun. When we left he gave of some Ukrainian sweets for in the car.

The basket ball team on TV.

So, you could stay in a tent...

...or you can rent a truck. The party was in front of a truck rented by Duke economics graduate students.

There's an article on Economist.com about a black market in candy bars in a school where candy bars are no longer sold by the school.

Reading that article brought back some really nice high school memories. When a vending machine for candy was placed in the hallway where we used to sit in the breaks, we decided to undercut it and made a nice profit for about two weeks.