A Soft Introduction to an Old World

Let's see....where were we?

Ah, yes...the Bed & Chair in London....

If you are familiar with traveling to London, you know that you can spend a lot of money just to stay in a reasonably comfortable hotel, which will include a semi-reasonably good breakfast, and (hopefully) your own private bathroom.  It's an expensive city! So...you get a bed and you get the requisite chair...and you make do. Speaking in mere generalities, we have a long running joke with an Australian friend of ours who actually lives in London now, trying to capture the curious English mindset: "Why be comfortable when you can make do?"  I love England, but they do have a penchant for the whole "stiff upper lip" thing and happily putting up with adverse circumstances. It's a matter of pride, I guess--they will persevere! 


I digress... back to the chair....you can have this chair:

The Chair

Or ((she flippantly says)) you can fly to Istanbul and have THIS chair:

Ahhhh!

Difficult choice, eh? But wait a minute, here's what it looked like after I'd made myself a little more comfortable:

This is only about one third of the room....there was the TV, the desk, the walls of windows, the view, the marble and tile bath, the doorbell.....  (And, for my needlework friends, see that framed design above the bed?  That's real embroidery!) Why am I blathering on so about a room, you might ask?  Well, it was all so unexpected!  This was included in a last-minute, heavily discounted river cruise deal (which we did a little further bargaining for an even better deal--believe me, they'll work with you on that!).  We just hadn't realized this was part of the package---I'd naively been expecting a Bed & Chair! I was prepared to make do. Hmmm....maybe the English are onto something?....Who says you can't benefit from low expectations?!

The Bosphorus

View from our window.

Really, the difference was night and day!