Twenty -two years after my last visit, I’m back in London. I have to say that it has changed a lot. I’m still struggling to get a feel on the city but after a full day of walking around (Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Westminster, Knightsbridge, Oxford Street, Paddington), I still haven’t managed to do that. For the most part, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not in New York. And I’m not a huge fan of New York anyway.

Also, I can’t seem to find a bookstore anywhere. All I find are Gaps and Zaras that I can’t stand at home either.

But of course the Houses of Parliament and the Westminster Abbey are sublime. The Millennium Wheel is a little incongruous.

I keep almost being run over by traffic because I keep forgetting what direction the cars come from. The British accent is so sophisticated that I feel very dowdy with my Midwestern pronunciation.

Now we are planning to find a good Indian restaurant. There have got to be many around Paddington, right?

Can anybody decipher the following Obama ad for me?

Tell Barack you are in. . . what, exactly? And where should we join Michelle? In voting for Obama? With all due respect, why should anybody be influenced by Michelle Obama’s decision to vote for her own husband?

This isn’t the first time that I’m getting the feeling that Obama is trying hard not to win this election.

The good news is that his opponent is fighting for the same goal even harder. Look at a similar ad by Romney’s campaign:

I mean, if she is so much better than Romney that we are asked to stand with her and not with him, then maybe we should just go ahead and vote for her instead?