A universal truth – whether or not you are talking about
real estate or the distance from the location where you exit your Heathrow
flight to where you board the London Express train that takes you to Paddington
station. Let’s just say it is a pretty long walk, which is another way of
saying that pretty much every muscle and joint from my hips down are feeling
the pain this morning.
On the other hand…I am looking out my hotel window at 5 in the
morning and I see a blue neon light reading “Savoy Theatre” above a Union Jack
sign reading “Let it Be…Beatlemania returns.” Next to it is the grand entrance
to the Savoy Hotel – stuff of legend, a near replica of the image on one of my
postcard from the 50’s. Even the taxi’s look almost the same. The guest list
looks something like this: George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Noël Coward. Edward VII, Enrico Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Harry Truman, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Babe Ruth, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, and the The Beatles.
Above the hotel I
see blue sky and I know that if I were to pass through that famous entrance and
walk out the other side, I would be looking at the Thames.
In about an hour,
I will step out the entrance of my distinctly less luxurious hotel (yes, I
could clearly hear my next door neighbor snoring through the paper-thin walls
last night) and I will be standing on The Strand.
Well worth the
walk.
