the conquistador has given permission for me to post his most recent dispatch, telling of his journey home after the london terrorist bombings. many thanks for his indulgence.


Quite a few people have asked if we had to walk home on July 7. Luckily no, although we did walk part of the way; there was also a boat, a Mercedes, a red double decker bus, and almost a taxi.

To complicate matters, we were moving into a new flat on July 8. We had already organised a man-and-a-van to move us, taken time off work, and otherwise planned our weekend around moving/settling, utilities, breaking the old lease, etc. A man-and-a-van can be hard to come by on short notice and so we booked well in advance. Without him it would have made moving a mess, if not impossible, and he was booked for July 8th. This meant that we had to sign the lease on the 7th so that we could get the keys, otherwise the appointment with the man-and-van would be worthless.

So, in addition to getting home after a terrorist attack, we had to make a detour to the estate agent and sign a lease (in some countries an estate agent is called an apartment locator, realtor, management company, etc).

Problem 1: H works in Greenwich, which is in the far far South East corner of the City. I work in the Center of the city, at London Bridge. The new apartment is in the Central West, and our old place is in the North West. This is a huge city and we needed to be everywhere in one afternoon with no transportation. We decided that we had to find each other first and figure the transport out as we went.

Problem 2: Mobile networks and most phone lines were down so phone communication was difficult and email was about 30 minutes delayed (which we didn't know). We tried to coordinate how, when and where we would meet but emails were late, messages were mixed, and phone connections were cut off. H did manage to receive an email that I sent to her to say that a free boat service was taking people from Greenwich to London Bridge - which was perfect.

Problem 3: We couldn't get ahold of each other by phone and sent me three emails to plan the meeting at London Bridge. I didn't receive those messages and was mostly oblivious to what she was trying to do, even though I had suggested it in the first place. So, she made the executive decision to get on a boat and at least start the process instead of waiting for confirmation of the plan. Then, huge stroke of luck, we made contact by mobile phone! She says that she's on the boat and is on her way, but that it doesn't stop at London Bridge, instead Tower Bridge. I say, "Well, either I can make the 20 minute walk to Tower Bridge now and try to find you as soon as you arrive, or you can come to London Bridge when you arrive which will delay us but will ensure that we find each other."

And then, her phone battery died.

Problem 4: This is similar, mildly, to the philosophical prisoner dilema. We both know the two options, the positives and negatives of each decision, and our own decision depended on the other person's decision but we didn't know what the other person would do. Of course, we both did opposite things, and we did so on different sides of the river, so that we ended up where the other person was supposed to be and yet wasn't. Luckily, again, she manages to get in contact with me and I make my way back, 20 later minutes, to London Bridge. Together at last, and that was the easy part. The morning rain has stopped (blessing), and now the sun is out - 83 degrees which is hot in a suit while walking around trying to find one person in a city of millions. We soon recognise the complete futility of trying to a) walk to our new home, or b) hail a taxi. So we start to consider where we could sleep if we don't make it home, how/when we will ever get a chance to move into the new flat, what sort of legal/financial/hassle repurcussions might result..... and then a bus driver from the absolute nearest empty red double decker bus to us (20 feet) indicates that limited bus services are resuming and his bus is going exactly where we need to go. There are hundreds of bus routes with thousands of destinations across the city, and this one was going exactly where we needed to go.

Problem 5: Do you really get onto a red double decker bus on the day when one was targeted by terrorists? Everyone around us expressed the same hesitation, which actually made us a bit more comfortable, and the sheer extraordinary fact that this bus was going exactly where we needed to go was more than we could ignore. So we got on the bus and it got us to the estate agent. The deposit was paid, the lease was signed, and the keys were obtained.

So, back to the original problem, which is how to get home with no tube and limited bus service. The estate agent offered to drive us as far as our new flat so that we could check that they keys worked, so we loaded into his Mercedes and went to the flat. From there we walked to a large tube/bus station in the hopes that we could get a bus nearer to our old flat. On the way we passed an empty taxi, another stroke of incredible continuing luck. But the taxi driver, very kindly, said that the roads were a mess and that it wouldn't be worth it getting in a taxi. Nice guy. In the end we got a bus near to our old place and walked the rest of the way. The move happened, the leases were settled, and everything went exactly to plan.


The city is mostly back to normal. Dating as recently as WWII, London has been bombed by the Germans, the Irish, Middle Eastern terrorists, and even other British. Unfortunately terrorism is not new, not unique, and not unexpected. People are here because they want to be here and they love the city. There are things to be done and that hasn't changed, even for a day or the weekend.