
Or should I say, "You can fly, you can fly, you can fly!" Doesn't this look just like from the movie "Peter Pan"? Anyway, what better place to begin our journey of the UK than in Jolly 'ole London. This shot was taken from atop the newest London attraction known as the London Eye. I'll have a picture later in the blog. For now, just know that as of this month, it is the largest observation wheel in the world, not to be confused with some Ferris Wheels that are larger. It stands about 443 feet high directly on the South Bank of the River Thames and one complete revolution (one "Flight") takes approximately 30 minutes from "Takeoff" to"Landing". Anyway, back to London. So, I arrived in London to begin "supporting" the HUKI (
Hilton
UK and
Ireland) OnQ Deployment Team. For those of you that don't know,

OnQ is the Front Office System that I install for Hilton. We have been installing in the US for MANY years now, and as Hilton just recently acquired the international portion of the company back, there has been an initiative to install our system worldwide starting with the HUKI division. My first trip was to a town called Watford which is just outside of London, but I arrived about a week early to enjoy the sights and sounds of London. I stayed at a hotel near Hyde Park called the Shaftesbury Hyde Park. This hotel was very pleasant (although the room was VERY small) and was situated about a block from The Tube (London's Underground mass transit system). This was perfect as I didn't have to walk very far to catch a train. Here is a sign of one of

the more "well known" Tube stations... During my time off in London, I saw many of the typical tourist attractions to include the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Baker Street (home of Sherlock Holmes), a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Downing Street (home of the Prime Minister), Buckingham Palace (although I missed the changing of the guards), and as mentioned before, the London Eye (shown below). Oh, yeah, and of course, I couldn't leave London without taking an open-top, double decker bus tour of the city. It was pretty informative (but it was REALLY cold sitting upstairs in February). Well, I guess that's good enough for now. I'll write more tomorrow (its 2:30am here right now). Stay tuned for the next episode... Cheery-O!