London Calling- Our last Stop out of the US

The train from Eastbourne to London was easy. Once in town we made our way to a Hostel for one night before we could go to the apartment we had for the rest of the time. The apartment was 10$ a day cheaper, had a kitchen and almost three times as much room. The hostel was more centrally located and therefor louder because it was on a busy street not in a neighborhood. But as hostels go this was a really good one and I would go back or recommend it especially for families or older travelers. It was clean and well run with very helpful staff and tons of information about what to do and how to do it.

View for the front of the hostel which was across the Street from Kings Cross and St Pancras train stations

Day One- Camden and Regents Park
As soon as we got our stuff there we went to explore the Camden area and the canals. Lots of food stalls and clothing booths. But we ate at a sit down Caribbean restaurant, really good. The walk along the canal lead us to Regent's park where it started to rain. After the morning sun we were bummed. But we jumped on the tube and went to the Wellcome museum one of the many free museums in London. This is a odd grouping of stuff which was all collected by this guy Wellcome, a pharmaceutical millionaire. He collected all kinds of stuff from surgical tools to Florence Nightingale's slippers, from erotica to religious objects. There was also an exhibit of art and science about current issues like obesity and malaria. All free and good for a rainy afternoon.

This is a view along the Camden canal. Looks like Amsterdam almost!

Royal jubilee gate at regents park. I don't remember which jubilee its celebrating.

Day Two - Soho walk and dinner with Helen
Dave and I did a self guided walking tour through the Soho area which ended up being one of our favorites. This area includes London's China town, theaters, strip joints, pron shops, bars all kinds of small shops, book stores and restaurants. It is touristy but with many Londoners roaming around too.
In the evening we had a last dinner with our friend Helen from Glastonbury who was in London working. It was really good to have one last time with her . We hope it won't be years till we see each other again.

Wild shoes in a shop window. These would be popular in Japan.

Dave getting intimate with the statues in Soho Square park. The park also had live piano music!

Seemed right this play should be happening as it was raining everyday.

Day 3- Victoria and Albert  in the Afternoon and Billy Elliot in the Evening

You may notice we did not get out of the house in the mornings. It was so uninviting outside we took a long time to get going everyday. But once we went out we were glad. And the tube system keeps you out of a lot of the rain.

But the days continued to be dreary and wet. Good thing London is full of free things to do inside as well as out. This day we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, free again. This museum has an amazing collection of stuff that they characterize as art and design but seems like so much more. There are things for every country England colonized and others, a fashion show with pieces from the 1700s till now, a collection of snuff boxes, silver, brass, ceramics, furniture, glass and so much more. Everything had stories to go with it and the audio tour was good. I liked the art book library. Imagine anyone in England can come here and look at these things or take books out in the art library and look at them there. We saw plenty of art student looking types sketching around the museum and studying in the library.

Silver lions

Art book library

Interior courtyard of the museum

Rolly polly chairs in the courtyard. Yes it stopped raining for a minute.

Theater where we saw Billy Elliot

In the evening we saw the musical Billy Elliot. This was an appropriate show to see as its heavy on the British history with lots of references to the reign of Margret Thatcher and the coal miners strike. The dancing was fantastic. Like NYC there is a half price ticket place here where we got tickets. They still seemed expensive so full price must be crazy. But these are the kinds of thing you can't do as easily in Santa Cruz so it seemed worth it to us. And the show really was great. We had an excellent Korean dinner before hand.

Statue of a dancer on top of the theater

Day Four-
Portobello market and South Bank to the Tate Museum

I have to say this market was not one of my favorites. It was really crowded, things were expensive and it started to rain. Anika really wanted to go so we went. The best thing I saw was a small Wedgwood plate but another tourist bought it right out from under me. This market seemed over run with tourist and mostly had antiques.

The crowd at Portobello Market

The best thing I saw at the market was this little girl dancing around.

Anika went home after lunch. Braving the rain was too much for her. Dave and I headed to the Tower of London to do a self guided walking tour. When we got out of the tube the rain had stopped!

Tower of London

One thing I found remarkable in this part of London is the mixing of the old and the new. You can have a view on one side of the Tower of London complex, which was started in 1078 and added on to by monarchs for years, to a view on the other side of the most modern sky scrapers you can imagine.

Modern buildings with "The Shard" in the background. This is going to be the tallest building in Europe when it is finished. From some angles it really looks like a shard of glass sticking up int o the sky.

First we crossed the Tower bridge. Legend has it that the Germans used this bridge as a marker for bombing London during WW2 and that's why they didn't hit it. We wandered along the South bank of the Thames to the Tate Museum of Modern art. This is supposed to be the most popular Modern art museum in the world. And it too is free. Well most of it is. They have special exhibits you have to pay for. We ended up wishing we had paid. Maybe we are not hip enough but a canvas painted grey, a room that looks like the leftovers from a construction site, industrial grade florescent lights hung on metal racks and stacks of bricks arranged in cubes of various dimensions just don't say art to us. Luckily the Surrealist gallery saved the day with good pieces by many different artists. Still the museum disappointed us a little as it had been really hyped up. A good lesson in don't have high expectations.

This is a Damien Hirst sculpture in front of the Tate. If you haven''t heard of Damien Hirst he is Britain's richest artist alive right now. His work is odd and interesting but we didn't pay the extra fee to see his show at the Tate. Maybe we should have.

All around London there are these traditional phone booths that artists have redone. There are still traditional red phone booths around that work, with pay phones in them but not that many because here as in much of the world pay phones are a dying breed. But the variety of ways artists have transformed them is amazing. You see these transformations all over the city. Below are a few of my favorites.

Old phone both as Big Ben

Day Five- Brick Lane Market and London Tour 

If you have read the novel "Brick Lane " by Monica Ali then you know a little about this neighborhood in London. It is or was a predominantly Pakistani and Bengali area with a strong Muslim influence. This is one type of diversity you see in Paris and London you do not see in the US. There are lots of women wearing the veil in all its variety of styles and shops that are clearly catering to Muslims. There may be an area in NYC, or another big US city with a strong muslin community but I have not been there yet. I hear Detroit has one but I doubt I will be going there anytime soon. We went to Brick Lane because Anika heard the weekend street market here was good and I have to agree.


The merchandise ranged from vintage clothing to peacock feather and flea market junk. There are all kinds of cafes and restaurants. Two with fresh bagels had lines out the door. There were several food markets selling every type of food you can think of. I had vegetarian Ethiopian for lunch. Anika shopped and got good deals on vintage clothes much to her delight. I didn't buy anything but I liked looking as the scene was very interesting with all kind of people selling all kinds of stuff, a little like the Santa Cruz flea market but with more cool stuff. There were also a lot of things that were handmade or artists selling their work.

This man selling peacock feather looked like he should be in a Moroccan souk not a London street corner.

Dave in front of some Brick Lane street art

From Brick Lane we headed to one of those Hop on Hop off bus tours. We were tired but I wanted Dave and Anika to get more fo a feel for the city. I had done this when I was in London the first time years ago. The first bus we got on had a taped narration so we got off at Trafalga square and switched to a live tour guide. It was well worth it. This guy was funny and had all these little side stories bot historical and current that made his talk very lively. Can you believe an American tourist recently asked him how the celebrate the Fourth of July in England. He had to remind her they lost in that one so they don't celebrate.

This is the corner of Eaton Square, where Upstairs Downstairs the old BBC series was supposed to happen. But pictured in white is J.K. Rowlings house. Or one of them. We also passed the bank where they filmed Grigots and several other Potter related places for you fans out there.

Final Thoughts on England

A highlight of London that was quite unexpected was the food. Not the British food but the Asian food. We had Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese and all were great. Most places we just stumbled into but we did go to a couple of Lonely Planet suggestions, one Caribbean and one Chinese which were good. The best was our last night where we found modern dim sum in Soho with enough vegetarian options for the now vegetarian Anika and mango pudding in coconut milk dessert for me. It was the perfect meal to end out time in London with.

Dogs in England were on leashes and well behaved. They follow rules here so people pickup after their dogs. We did not see many and no cats at all. But we were not out as much and maybe they weren't either because of the rain.

If I thought France was shades of grey England was even greyer. It was sooty dank damp and in some places so green. But the wet grey drippyness over ruled everything else. I know the weather here is often not good but I don't think I could live in this much grey and wet.

People however were really friendly and helpful. There seems to be a feeling of humility here like their country was world power once and now its not so lets be nice. No where did we feel threatened or unsafe. And although this is a big city, like Paris, it seemed people still take the time to talk and the pace is livable. Maybe that's why when we got to NYC the first thing we noticed, besides the blistering heat (which I liked as a contrast to the gloom we had been in ) was how people were rushing around like crazy. London was one of Anika's favorite cities, after Tokyo. Dave didn't expect to be so modern with the blend of old and new. He really likes the Shard and took a ton of photos of it.

Although everyone speaks English you still can't always understand them. But it was a good choice to come here before coming home because it eased or way back. In England you can see and feel so much of the connection between the US and Britain. The influence is clear. Also England and Germany were the only places were being from the US was still something positive to people we met. They want to come here and see it, see hoe we live, while people in most other countries seemed in different if not negative toward the US.

Now on to NYC and home. How weird will that be?