If you're from the United States, and you're willing to sit in a cramped seat, about 7 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, for 11 hours, you're in for a treat.

(Of course, what wouldn't be a treat after that?)

What happens after 11 hours is that you find yourself in London, a city where they speak your language, but you're still foreign—not exotic, though. More like amusing.

Sometimes people couldn't tell what I was trying to say. Sometimes they laughed and turned to each other to figure out what I meant, as in a game of charades.

Who can blame them? We have funny accents, we talk way too fast, and our idioms are all screwy.

We also do silly things, although the long-suffering man in the sharp gray suit, trying to get by and go to work, seems more resigned than amused.

London spans a remarkable length of time.

You can walk up and touch a wall built during the Roman occupation, and walk across a bridge built at the end of the 19th century.

These are about a 5 minutes walk, and 2 millenia, apart.

In the British Museum, you can see antiquities, such as statues from ancient Greece.

Across the river in Greenwich, you can see Gypsy Moth, the tiny boat sailed around the world by Sir Francis Chichester in the 1960's.

You can also see lots of pubs.

At this pub in Greenwich, you can get your daily requirement of eels, served just the way you like them.