I’m reading William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition

, and in it, the protagonist talks about London being a mirror world to New York. Everything is the same, but at the same time, different.

I’m experiencing that same kind of realization. I can get whatever I could get in the states, except it has a slight variation. Soda is slightly more carbonated. Chips are crisps. Cookies are biscuits. Shrimp are prawns, trucks are lorries, dumpsters are skips, elevators are lifts, vacuum cleaners are hoovers, ad infinitum.

And talking about mirror world, driving on the opposite side of the road is more a mind challenge than anything else. The trick is to soften the once hard as stone rules in your mind that driving on the left side of the road is forbidden. Once that’s handled, you start to get to used to it, and it’s almost as if the now malleable “sides” rule is now satisfied to work for keeping you from driving on the right.

Leah, Carrie, and sister-in-law Stacey are taking to the mirror world as well as can be expected with jet lag. The body and mind don’t take to the mirror time as quickly, so they’re going through the requisite sleeping disorders. I think last night was the turn around point – everyone slept through the night I think, with only one little cry session from Leah (who now has three teeth showing, and another on the way).

Matt just suggested that I get in touch with some London bloggers and have them show us around, so, if you’re a London blogger, drop me a note.