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| 05/2010-London |
I really tried not to panic but I really don't do well in closed spaces. Fortunately, about 15 minutes later (I swear it felt like an hour) the doors magically opened again. We took all four flights of stairs for the rest of our stay!
Day one/Thursday: While Thomas worked, I made my way to the New London Architecture center, which had a great public exhibition on all of the areas around the city that they're trying to improve, especially related to the upcoming 2012 Olympics. It was also interesting to learn how they plan to convert the Olympic facilities for use afterwards, to recycle/reuse materials. They also had a model of the entire city (well, almost) so you could really get an idea of how large it is.
Afterwards, since I was just around the corner, I stopped by the British Museum. There was an excellent exhibition on Renaissance drawings, featuring all the greats like Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli... Drawing is the basis for so many of the arts, and these guys really perfected it, studying anatomy and mathematical perspective. It helps that paper became more widely available around this time, which was cheaper to produce and could be used for studies/sketching. Previously they had used vellum, which is made from animal skin, and because of its higher cost was used for more permanent or important things.
A quick sandwich and coffee and we're off... Thomas took me on a walking tour (map) of some of his favorite neighborhoods. He worked in Soho and spent a lot of time in that area: Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Chinatown, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, St. James Garden.... are your feet tired yet?
It was election day so there was lots of talk and activity around that, too.
Later we met his friends Louise and Richard for a pint (hey, it's Thursday) and dinner at an Italian Restaurant.
Day two/Friday: We took the Tube down to St. Paul's Cathedral (map) and then walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern. We walked along the Thames on the south side towards the Tube station, to get to Canary Wharf. Thomas thought I should see the modern architecture there. It's a big banking center with tall office buildings, but great street life on the ground level... lots of pubs, restaurants and shopping. Since it was Friday at lunch, they were all busy!
Later we went to the Camden markets (map), which are outdoor markets with stalls selling everything you can think of, and attracting all kinds of people...
Friday night Thomas had arranged to meet his friend Lea in Marylebone, near the University of Westminster (map) where he went to business school. It brought back a lot of memories for him: the dorm he lived in, the pub where they all met after class.... We also met his colleague, Johan, who is transferring from the Valtech office in Copenhagen to their London office. They're trying to lure Thomas back to London, but something tells me he might have other plans : )
Saturday: A little tired, maybe a little hungover... I made the trip out to Hampton Court, whose famous resident was Henry VIII. I don't know if you've been watching the Tudors series on Showtime--very fun and trashy if not historically accurate--but it made me want to go see this. I've toured quite a few of the big royal palaces like Versailles and Schloss Schönbrunn, but what made this one nice was the touches throughout to keep it in the period. They had actors dressed up in character walking around talking to visitors, and all of the guards/workers were dressed like royal guards. Maybe a little cheesy, but neat. And it helped that it was a gray, cool London day, so there weren't very many people there.
My favorite part was the kitchen. They cooked for a thousand people at a time, and the tour described the tremendous effort in bringing in the food and processing it. They said that part of the reason the court moved around to the different palaces is that they would consume all of the available resources in one area, and have to move on. They ate a lot of meat and white bread, which were both signs of wealth, and mostly drank wine. No one drank water, because it was unsafe, so even children drank beer... and vegetables were for peasants. Our man Henry weighed almost 400 pounds when he died.
My trip back to the apartment took 1 1/2 hours... the train back to Waterloo and then 3 tubes from there, so I needed a nap! The city is working on the Tube city in preparation for the Olympics, so there are a lot of interruptions on the weekends. It seemed like we spent a lot of time down there, and I think I heard that the average Londoner spends 3.5 hours a week in the Tube! It's not cheap... 5.60 GBP or about $8 for a day pass, and cabs are even more expensive. Thomas said he saw a lot more people riding their bikes than when he lived there before, and the city is trying to make the streets more bike-friendly.
Saturday night we met Thomas' friend Jonas and his new girlfriend Pernille in East London (map). We did a little bar hopping, starting at Bar Kick, which had a foosball tournament underway, and ending up at a 1920s-themed bar called the Last Days of Decadence. The music was great and everyone was dressed up in character. It was fun but I felt a little underdressed in my jeans and chucks.
Day four/Sunday: We went up to Hampstead (map), a fairly upscale, villagey neighborhood in North London where Thomas lived. We met Lea for brunch at a French patisserie (temptations all around) and walked through Hampstead Heath, one of the large parks in London. It was so quiet you could hardly tell you were in the city.
It was soon time to get going... walking, Tube, train to Gatwick... it was crazier than usual because the ash cloud is now covering parts of Spain and Italy, so they canceled a bunch of flights. Ours was delayed by a couple of hours but we made it!
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