London, Again

Before I leave London I visited Leah who just moved to London for school. After taking several buses I met her on the south bank near Kings Cross station. The last time I saw Leah was at my goodbye party and it’s nice to finally see a familiar face after all this time. We decided to check out the Bridge Festival on the Thames River and miraculously the weather in London was nice and sunny.



One of the nights we explored London by bus and got back pretty late. Since neither of us really knows the area that well, we got lost on the way back. Instead of getting off at the right stop we sat on the bus all the way back to Kings Cross station and ended up walking back using tall buildings as a landmark. After we finally got back to the house, her flatmates all told us, that we walked through one of rougher areas of London, who knew?



The next night we went out to a pub bar and I had to catch early morning flight at Heathrow. We headed back around 1 or 2 am and took the bus. On the bus there was a group of French guys. They were harassing everyone on the bus and one of them went and grabbed a girl. The girl was with a pretty big Russian guy and naturally an argument started. Next thing we know a drink is thrown and all the French guys start fighting this one Russian guy. It was ridiculous one of the Frenchies even jump ninja turtle kicked the Russian guy. It got to the point where the Russian guy was on the floor of the bus and the Frenchies were stomp kicking him. Finally other people on the bus stepped in and pushed and fought the group of French guys off the bus. Leah and I quickly got off at that stop and watched the entire incident from away.

Appleshaw: Proper Village Life

My next stop is London. There are many factors in this decision. To get to Turkey from Morocco one way flights cost between 800-1000 USD, while a flight from Gibraltar to London and also London to Istanbul totaled less than 300 USD. In addition, somehow my credit card information was stolen and charges started to appear from Miami, FL so my replacement card has been sent to James’ house in Appleshaw.

The Emilie Hostel in Gibraltar is perhaps the worst hostel I've stayed at in my 6months of travel through Europe. I am not at all reluctant to leave this place. In the morning Nick, Paulina and I set out on foot to the airport. They are flying to Spain and I will fly to Gatwick, London. Gibraltar’s airport is quite unique. There is a major road and pedestrian walkway that cuts right now the middle of the airstrip. So we walk across the land strip and say our goodbyes at the airport.




I landed in London early in the morning and booked a train ride from Gatwick to Central London. I bought a slow ticket since it was much cheaper than the Gatwick Express, fast train. Then I accidentally got on the Gatwick Express and didn’t realize until the train had already departed and tickets were being checked. The girl checking tickets wanted me to buy a Gatwick Express ticket, but after much bargaining she let me off with a warning.

I got to Central London and made it to Victoria Station well ahead of the departure time of my bus to Appleshaw. I end up at the same Library near Victoria Station as several months back to relax and do some reading. After taking the bus I end up arriving at James’ pretty late at night.



James wasn’t kidding when he said I would be staying at a proper village. The country side of England is cold this time of the year. Everything is green and roads are narrow. We were able to check out a proper village pub where, like cheers, everyone knows your name. Or in this case James’ name. The next day we checked out the Salisbury Cathedral.



The next day Cheri made a trip down from Leeds on her way to Whales. She stopped by for a night and we took a trip to Stone Hinge. Stone Hinge was one of the sights I missed on my original path through the UK, but now I get to see it. We got the audio tour of Stone Hinge with the tickets and from all the audio we came to the conclusion that no one really knows how the site was constructed and the physical feat of lifting such a big and heavy stone from whales to its current location is about as amazing as the Pyramids of Giza. On our way back from Stone Hinge we saw a tank.

Sights of London

Here are some other pictures I took while exploring London.







The London Eye

London Museums

London is full of museums and the best part is that most of them are free. I was able to visit the National Galleria, and the Tate Modern in one day and the British Museum the following day. Visiting museums one after another can easily lead to an overdose. Spreading these museum excursions in between other activities definitely helped to alleviate this overdose of museums.

The National Galleria is full of paintings categorized and organized by era. It is located at Trafalgar Square. It sits overlooking the square's two massive fountains in the direction of Ben Big. The museum is funded by donations and extra donations for the audio tour. Going up the stairs leads to the entrance of four categories of paintings organized by era. The entrances to the exhibits are arranged in chronological order from left to right. Cameras are not allowed in any of the facilities so I only have outside pictures. The most interesting piece of artwork was "The Ambassadors" which shows a distorted skull on the bottom which takes shape when viewed from the right side almost adjacent to the painting. There is much debate over the symbolism of why the artist chose to put a skull on the bottom on the painting. Rather than bore you with the details of that, I will suggest my interpretation: The artist decided to paint that skull in order to flaunt his mad skill and make the painting much more interesting than the original subjects that he was commissioned to paint.



Between visiting the National Galleria and going to the Tate Modern, we venture through Green Park for a brief intermission, towards the direction of Buckingham Palace. On the journey over we run into some Queen's Guards out performing in the courtyard.




Green Park has a walking trial that runs around a pond. In the middle is Duck Island. As we walk past the pond there are several groups of ducks and swans. At the end of the lake Buckingham Palace begins to emerge in the distance.



The Tate Modern is located on the south side of the Thames River between the Blackfriar's Bridge and the Millennium Bridge. I decided to take the tube to the Southwark station. After emerging from the underground, our views are drawn to the bright orange light poles that mark the direction to the Tate Modern. About a ten minute walk winding through narrow streets busy with construction, the Tate Modern appears. It was built from an old power station. The entrance is what is called the turbine hall which is overlooked by all 7 floors of artwork.

One of the main attractions of the Tate Modern is Claude Monet. They have Monet's Water-Lilies painted after 1916. The Tate Modern also has many up and coming artists. The only floor that was not included as a free exhibit was Duchamp. He gets his fame from taking a urinal, flipping it upside down, signing his name on it and calling it art. Same logic applied, I make art every morning I go into the restroom. Needless to say I was not disappointed that I did not get to see his "artwork". With the day coming to an end around 5:45pm, I decide to save the British Museum for the next day.

The British Museum is located near our first hostel, The Generator. It surrounded by the four tube stops, Goodge Street, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Rd, and Holborn. Having just visited Camden Town, which is directly north of that area, I decided to take a walk from Euston Station south via Gower Street. I pass through the London University College on my way to the Museum. A rush of bike traffic hurries through the side streets between classes. There are hordes of students out walking around. I finally reach the Museum on the left after side-stepping past flocks of ipod wearing students.

Another left and I am facing the entrance of the British Museum. It is definitely a tourist hotspot as several groups of people claim the limited real estate in front of the entrance to pose for pictures. The museum itself is huge. Two rolls of ionic columns form the foundation to a triangular roof. Inside the top triangle are several statues with gold plated details. The concrete is weathered and the darked aged details are more striking against the light gray.

The doorway opens up to a spacious atrium where a network of triangular glass panels form the roof. The first thing you'll notice is how white the entire area is. It further enhanced by the large windowed roof which lets in ample amounts of light. Large white tiles make up the floor and walls. Directly in front are two sets of steps that curve oppositely around the middle structure leading to various exhibits.

The British Museum is huge in comparison to the other I have visited. Besides being bigger and better, there are no photography restrictions. A 4gig card was not enough to capture all the interesting items that this institute had to offer. Housing over 13 million items, the British Museum is one of the largest exhibits in the world. It contains objects from all continents and is themed on human culture and history. It is easy to get lost amongst the many exhibits and still not see the same thing twice. I spent most of my time in the Egyptian and Asian exhibits. And below are some of my favorites.

A Crocodile Suite was displayed behind glass and the lighting made it difficult to get a picture. This item was featured in the Egyptian area. This armor, although non-functional as protection, was worn by the Egyptian military in third to fourth century AD. The Egyptians have strong belief in the power of the Nile Crocodile and the Crocodile god, Sobek. This armor was believed to give the wearer the strength and power of the Crocodile and acted more as a mental stimulus striking fear to their enemies.

Nesuke are miniature sculptures from 17th century Japan. These tiny, roughly the size of a lime or small orange, figurines were once used as part of traditional Japanese attire. A Netsuke acted as a button to hold various containers or pouches, as in those days the robes had no pockets. They are now a rarity as that clothing trend came to an end. It is truly amazing the amount of detail the artists are able to put into these small items. The material used ranges from common woods to rare animal tusks.

London, By Foot

We decided to take a free walking tour. Free? What's the catch? It seems that most major historic cities have these free walking tours. The tour guides are hired by the Sandmans company that does many of the free walking tours throughout Europe, the most famous one being Berlin. They are not paid hourly or a salary, but are rather compensated by tips from the people on the tour. Other advantages of working on tips is that it is a workaround for people that are not suppose to have employment within the country as well as not having to report wages for taxes.

The tour started around 9am and we all gathered near a sun dial monument. This sculpture was commissioned by the transportation system of London. Along the outer edge of the sundial a depiction of London history is crafted in bronze. A motif of the Thames River and rats run throughout the entire historical representation. It seems that these two items both play important parts of London's history.


The tour guide takes us along the busy streets of the city. We travel along the Thames River to view all the famous bridges starting at Tower Bridge, to London Bridge, to Southwark Bridge, Millennium Bridge, and finally stopping at Blackfair's Bridge. London Bridge is actually not that impressive. Most people mistake London Bridge for Tower Bridge which is depicted below. In fact the original London Bridge was purchased and moved to United States. It was rebuilt brick by brick before the buyer said "Where's the rest of it?" and realized that he had mistaken London Bridge as Tower Bridge. One of the originals of the London Bridge is now located in the great state of Arizona.

Tower Bridge


Blackfair's Bridge

Millennium Bridge
There is a funny story about Millennium Bridge. London commissioned x million pounds for this bridge to be built for the celebration of the Millennium. Well, it didn't get finished in time and furthermore when it was finished it had a defect. The bridge swayed so much that people got sick walking across it. So another x million pounds was spent to stabilize it. It is interesting the many parallelisms one can draw between this saga and the field of software engineering.

The tour continued to the heart of the city. We stopped by Temple Church. This is the establishment of one of the most ancient society of lawyers. It was mentioned in the DaVinci Code and actually does indeed exist. After crossing a parking lot full of exotic cars we come to the church.

The exterior is nothing impressive but the view from the inside is spectacular. There are stained glass windows all around and small statues lining the edges on the walls, each with a unique face and expression. Our guide tells us that Lawyers here are not only required to pass the bar but also sit through 12 formal dinners.

We walk pass a Griffin statue situated in the middle of a street. These statues face outwards and mark the borders to the City of London, which is separate from area of Greater London. The City of London has a population of roughly 7 thousand compared to Greater London's 7 million. The size of the City of London is roughly one square mile and her borders have stayed consistent since the Middle Ages, thus earning her the name of Square Mile.

We exit the city of London, walking past another outward facing Griffin. This street is full of dress clothes stores. I look into a window and see a typical sold long sleeve dress shirt is 75€ (~$115) with a "on sale" sign next to do it. Across the street is the Royal Court of Justice. The tour comes to an end. We are now in a new unfamiliar part of town and wander around aimlessly.

Woke up in London

In the wee hours of the morning, 7:30am, everything is closed; the hostel booking standing, the internet cafes, the public library, tourist information booths, etc. The only place we found open were morning coffee shops where we grabbed a bite to eat. I sit outside in the cold. It is windy on and off and the sun has been behind clouds since I got in. People are rushing to work and getting coffee's to-go. A small sized cup of coffee is 3£, roughly $6. I quickly notice that the walking pace here is a tad bit quicker than the Dublin.

After lounging in the cold, I explore the surrounding area, unable to find a hostel. As the hours pass we are finally able to use the internet in the train station. It seems that most places are booked, but we are able to find a hostel for 20£ a night, The Generator. Contrary to the advice given to us by our friend from London, we decided to go ahead and book the hostel anyways.

The Generator is a party hostel, at any time there are roughly 800 guests staying there, or so the bathroom signs tell us. Because of the number of people, everything is crowded. The decorations of the hostel consist of an old interior with bright reflective stainless steel floors and multicolored neon lights across the ceiling. On the actual residence floor it is a much different story. One look down the hall way and it almost seems like an old prison. There is a bar/club on the bottom floor, so it is loud. At night, security patrols around the front door telling people to not make so much noise. This seems pretty futile to me, considering the club has enough bass to be heard from any floor on the building in that same corner. Needless to say we switched hostels.

The next agenda on our list was food. London is famous for its diversity and it is also known for good Indian food. Luckily next to the Generator was a vast array of restaurants of various ethnicity. We stopped by the first reasonably priced location and ordered some curry.

I pictured London as being taller, however after arriving I see that it is more spread out than tall. I am told that there is a limit on how high buildings are around here. Gene and I visit the Foundling Museum which had a concert for a classical guitarist. The show was inspiringly good and gave me a craving to play my guitar, which I sold just before my departure on this trip. That night I began to research which guitar(s) I wanted to get for when I return. Thus far I think I want an American Stratocaster (cream) and also a Yamaha acoustic guitar. The next day we found a 1£/hour internet cafe, very reasonable considering our hostel wanted 5£/hour and booked our next lodge.


Palmer's Lodge runs about 16£ a night, but it has free internet and breakfast included. It is located just north of the Swiss Cottage tube stop which is in the northwest area of London. The location is not ideal; however I was tired of moving all my stuff around. I decided that internet, free breakfast, better rooms, and cleaner bathrooms were enough to warrant being further away from the city. With an Oyster card it was a much easier decision.

An Oyster Card is used for much of London's public transit systems. The card deploys a pay as you go system where you can top off the card using coins, cash or smart-chip equipped (non-US) credit cards. The card contains a contactless smartcard which is used to swipe when you enter a tube stop or get on a bus. For tube stops you swipe once more when you get off the tube where the cheapest fare is then calculated. The fare prices range depending on distance and whether the travel time was during peak hours, however it caps off every day. To give you an idea City of London to Swiss cottage is about 2£, while a typical fare within London is 1.40£.