London!

Hi all! This week I have pictures for you from London. A lot of pictures actually. I think the shutter happiness was a result of traveling by myself (not worrying about holding up the group), having an extra day (3 instead of 2) and the architecture in the city (amazing and varied, as you'll see). So without further ado, pictures:

In order to get the cheapest flights I had some pretty convoluted travel arrangements. I left my flat at 2am Saturday morning, traveled to the train station by bike, then caught a bus to drive out to the alternate airport that the budget airlines fly out of. I arrived in London via Stansted Airport, took a bus to Baker Street (as in 221b Baker St.) and bought a ticket for the tube for the next three days. The London tube system is huge!





I got very familiar with the tube over the course of my trip. London is too big to see without it. My first stop was Westminister, with Big Ben, the Abbey, etc.









The soveriegn's entrance to parliament:



Then I took a walk along the South Bank:

I like the irony of this next photo. Apparently Margaret Thatcher dissolved the Greater London Council back in the 1980's and so county hall is now an entertainment center:


Also outside county hall is the London eye, a tourist attraction letting you get an aerial view of the city:


The Tate Modern, housed in a former coal factory along the south bank:


The Tower Bridger (not the London bridge, that's one bridge over). I just happened to arrive at the right time to see the bridge while it was raised:


Former warehouses, now ultra-hip apartments and stores. The bridgeways used to be for transferring stuff from docks to warehouses further inland:


Tower of London, too big to really fit in a photo!


There were lots of interesting clocks around the city:




Buckingham Palace horse gate:

The crowds at the palace are ridiculous. Here you can see a gaggle of tourists going crazy over one of the guards at the gate:


View of the palace from the park:


The guards at St. James palace have it a little better I think:


I don't think I would fine a park that was this crowded very relaxing!


Old and new in Piccadilly Circus:


I just love the archetecture of London; it has so much character! This is a photo of one of the "mews" I could see out the window from my hostel:


The English are known for their public programmes; there were lots of sites of construction and reconstruction and renovation in the city. One thing I liked though was that all the sites had signs describing the project and why it was being undertaken and the measures the builder was taking to protect the environment and control noise and dust:


St.Paul's Cathedral:


A concession to my mom who is always wanting to take pictures with me in them; This way I got a piece of the history of the site but you can see me in the reflection:


The label cockney meant that you were born with in hearing of the bells of Mary-e-bow church. I can see how this was a lower class part of the city at one time, look at how narrow the "streets" are! You couldn't fully extend your arms accross the width of these streets at times:




The leadenhall market stands out from the buildings around it:


This is a very cool building in my opinion, the Swiss RE tower:


Lloyds of London building, with all the infrastructure on the outside:


Three layers of the city. That's the edge of Great St. Helen's (where Shakespeare worshiped) in the foreground, the ultra modern Swiss RE tower in the background and something in between:


The vastness of the bank of London building is similarly impossible to capture on film:

I thought this simbolized the power of the bank (at least at one point in time. The text reads: "The Bank made this way through the corner for the citizens of London":


While I generally find cities too crowded to be comfortable, I think I could probably put up with the crowds for the opportunity to live and work in buildings with so much character and history! I don't care much for the newer and more suburbian parts of the city, but if I could live and work in these older quarters where the old streets meet the new towers, I would be tempted.

The view from the pedestrian bridge looking towards St. Paul's:


A highlight of my trip was seeing a performance of Shakespeare's "Love's Labors Lost" at the reconstructed globe theatre. It's only 5£ for a standing ticket, (about a third the price of the cheapest tickets anywhere else!) and you're right there in the middle of the play experiencing it roughly the way most Londoner's would have centuries ago. The show was quite good; a pretty outrageous comedy if you're not familiar with it (I wasn't).




Hyde Park was a little calmer than St. James Park:


I ate my dinner there.(Food in London is generally rather expensive, so I found a grocery store and bought bread and cheese and peaches for a couple meals.)

The entrance to the subway at hyde park corner:


Brittish museum of natural history. I didn't have time to go in but the building is pretty awesome:




The Old Royal Navel College and the Queen's House in Greenwich.




Greenwich has a very distinctive feel to it (as do each of the other older parts of the metropolis):


Greenwich park was almost empty by way of comparison to the other parks in the city:


Another view of the Queens house and marintime museum from up at the royal observatory:


Marker for the prime meridian:


This is just a cool hotel I saw in Russell square near the British Museum:


The British museum, absolutely gianormous. I only had time to see a few of the exhibits. (I explored Chinese, Korean and Japanese history and art.) The nice thing is that all the major museums are free! So you don't feel too bad just stopping in for a little while just to see some of these incredible collections.



One last piece of cool London architecture:


Overall, I really liked the city. While the crowds were annoying, (London is bigger than any of the cities I've visited in Germany and has significantly more tourists!) but the continuity of the history is something I haven't seen anywhere else. I also found the Londoners to be quite pleasant. While it may have just been the lack of a language gap (It took some getting used to being able to just walk up and ask a question; not try to sort through whether you knew how to ask or if it was really important to know anyway.), but I was amazed by how polite and friendly all the people working at the different stores and info counters were. And I don't think I ever heard a Londoner complain or even give an exasperated look to the crowds of bumbling tourists or that one extra person who squeezed in to the subway car already full to the bursting point. Now England is know as a land of the characteristically poor food, late trains and long queues, and it may be that this stereotypically English trait of just bearing up with it is partially to blame, but it does make it much easier to bear it when the folks around you aren't making a fuss. This was probably the thing I enjoyed most of the little bit of English culture I experienced.