I am finally over my jet lag and Domingos off on his first day of work (www.anouskahempeldesign.com), so I grab my map and head out the door for a bit of exploring. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to dig my umbrella out of one of our four mammoth duffles, and so here I am, drying off @easyInternetcafe while cats and dogs are being dumped by the bucketful outside on Tottenham Court Road. It’s true what they say about the weather here. It is June, what I would consider summer, and yet the rain never ceases even just a moment to amaze me. It’s not a thunderstorm like we have in the midwest when the rain comes down and pours all day, your house a soundingboard to the gallons of water pounding the roof. And definitely not like the rain in Rio that emerges out of nowhere and dramatically like a drag queen for five or ten minutes, just long enough to sip a passionfruit juice under a covered juice stand, only for the skies to crack open into impossible blueness and heat, leaving the black and white calzado dry and steaming. No, London rain is walking pneumonia, gray and drizzly and a touch uncomfortable nearly always, and you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel the way you do and you can’t really imagine a time when you won’t. So many of the older buildings in London are shades of pale. They are faces cyanotic with white and gray—the buildings match the color of the sky here. Even the newer construction, the imposing glass and steel Norman Foster creations boldly pulling up the monolithic and traditional cityscape into a decidedly more avant-garde horizon echo loudly of the aquatic and cool London climate. Apparently, according to my expatriate friends, this weather also explains the mind-boggling “carpet in the bathroom” phenomenon found in pubs and private residences all over the city. More on this later…