MONDAY JULY 20TH-LEAVING LVIV, UKRAINE

Greetings Blog Readers its day 23 of this travelblog,

I awoke today with the thought that our travel to London today and New York on Tuesday was the beginning of the end of this great journey.

We didn't leave Ukraine without enjoying one more excellent breakfast buffet at the Swiss Hotel.  White tableclothes and waitstaff hovering to fulfill your every breakfast wish.  

Alex drove us to the airport which was not at all busy.  We said our goodbyes to Alex, who, besides being and incredibly knowledgable historian and gifted linguist, is a gracious and friendly host and fellow traveler.  We were first in line for security and got through quickly although one of the security people got a radio call instructing me to return to the Lufthansa ticket counter because of a problem with my checked luggage.  As I began to walk back to where I checked my suitcase he got another call telling me everything is okay.  My theory is that they were puzzled by the images of many small hotel bars of soap, shampoo bottles, and complimentary slippers.  I won't know if there's a problem  until we get to New York on Tuesday because our checked luggage was checked all the way through.  It was a relief to be light and fast in London even if it was only for one night.  Our flight from Lviv,Ukraine was uneventful except that every Lufthansa Airline flight in Europe seems to include a change of planes somewhere in Germany.  We had a brief stopover in Munich and headed for London. 

Phyllis had arranged for a car service to pick us up and take us to our repeat stay at Aster House Bed and Breakfast in South Kensington.

We had a little confusion because of the multitudes of drivers with little signs with names on them as they try to find their passengers.  A phone call and we found him.  Once at Aster House we dropped our hand luggage and joined the enless crowds of Londoners in the Underground and traveled to Knitsbridge Station where we surfaced just one block from Harrods Department Store. 

 Harrods is an extremely high-end department store in a very high-end part of London.  Inside Harrods are a maze of very overly expensive designer clothes, shoes, perfume and furs (yes, furs).  You may remember that Harrods was owned by the Father of Dodi Fayed, the man who was dating, and died with, Princesse Diana in that Paris car crash.  According to Leone, our Inkeeper for the night, Harrods is now owned by members of the Quatari royal family which has attracted the many very wealthy Arabs in Lodon to shop at Harrods.  While walking through the store Phyllis pointed out a woman walking in front of us wearing a Hermes (I learned it's pronounced "her-mezz") blouse and that such a blouse costs $1,000 US.  I then realized that that was who actually buys stuff at Harrods.  The rest of the people are tourists riding the Egyptian escalator and salivating at the red velvet cupcakes costing 3.95 pounds, not dollars, each.  We bought a sandwich at the very elegant Harrods food department for the long flight to New York tomorrow and went across the street from Harradsto have dinner at a chain sushi and bento restaurant called "Wasabi"  It's set up like any fast food place for take out or take the food to a table.  The sushi is absolutely great and the prices are really low compared to any sushi bar I've been to.  We headed back on the London Underground to our South Kensington (also a very nice neighborhood) Bed and Breakfast for our final overnight of this trip.  Tomorrow morning, after breakfast we take the London Underground all the way to our departure terminal at Heathrow Airport for the long flight to New York.