Traveling abroad is always a nervy affair; there will always be that one thing that doesn't fit into plan. I was not certain my shuttle pick-up will be present at Heathrow airport to fetch me. Heathrow itself resembled the chaos we have become accustomed to at Noord taxi rank. Immigration officials are very glum. Maybe I arrived at busiest of times. When all was checked, there was my pick-up shuttle, waiting for me. What a relief! The drive from Heathrow to my hotel was very long thanks to the bumper to bumper traffic. It looked like Joburg complete with accidents and motorbikes that have run out of petrol. London Metro were visibly hard at work, I spotted two roadblocks.
London looked very busy and the weather on this day was unusually beautiful (weather can be miserable in London, I am told). People were generally cheerful and walking with an extra spring. As one has come to expect in European cities, good weather is never allowed to go to waste, people were walking, cycling and jogging. Others simply dozed off anywhere they could.
It took us almost an hour to get to my hotel which was situated to the south-east of London, in a suburb called Docklands. By now the time was about 11am in the morning, but check-in could only happen at 2pm. I didn't know this, but my phone was on South African time, which meant I was in fact even an hour ahead. The wait for 2pm was very long.
The television offering in my hotel was all together a boring affair. Everywhere you looked you found studio guests discussing a range of vague topics or just playing some game or other. But not so for the mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The man is a ball of energy. A charismatic speaker whose turn of phrase could put so many stage actors to shame. One London city official said to me that London likes to appoint celebrity mayors.
My experience of European conferences is that sometimes, in fact often times the hosts will at some stage leave you at your own devices. On the third day of the conference we were supposed to attend a breakfast seminar at the London City Hall. This hall is situated a good 45 minutes away from my hotel. Each participant was expected to take him/herself there. We don't do this in South Africa. We will go all out to book a common transport to take all those invited to the common venue. The City Hall is right in the center of town, a stone's throw from the famous Tower Bridge. From the City Hall, which is build such that you could have a 360 degree view, the London skyline sprawled majestically into the horizon.
Docklands evidently was a docks, but has now seen some splendid gentrification; it is a thriving and serene enclave. It is here too that Siemens built its innovative building - The Crystal. It is here too that the C40 Siemens Leadership Awards were held.
Two days is a very short time to get a good understand of a place. My observations nonetheless are that London is a thriving city and surprisingly still dependent on cars. Its traffic congestions conjured images of Joburg and what with the much reported over 100 car pile up that took place in Kent. The city is a walkers and bicycles paradise.
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