I did three touristy things today: first, a stop at Westminster Palace for the official tour, during which I got to stand right in the Government benches in the House of Commons, less than a meter from where the P.M. sits when they're in session. No photographs allowed, I'm afraid; but now the whole setup makes a lot more sense to me. I'm all set for the resumption of Question Time, the comedy half-hour broadcast every Wednesday from the chamber.
Second, a direct boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich, with some wanderings through the Royal Observatory:
Finally, a trip out to Southend-on-Sea to see the sea. And, apparently, to get rained on; here's the storm blowing in:
In all, a very fun day with lots of walking. (I'll eventually put my Google Earth tracks up.)
Tomorrow: Cambridge.
Really cool slide show of alternative mass-transit maps via the Economist's Gulliver blog. One, for example shows North American systems to scale.
I know I should be studying financial accounting, but this stuff is distracting.
Will someone please tell me what this means, and whether the pelican survived?
More photos from London to follow later this week.
We go in and out of classrooms all day, every day, and along the way have watched the Thames' noticable tides. We're just a couple days past the New Moon, meaning it's spring tide. Today the BBC weather centre predicted a 7-meter (22-foot) spread at London Bridge, just upriver from our hotel.
Here's low tide, around 10 this morning, from the hotel:
Now high tide, about 4 this afternoon:
Here are side-by-side comparisons of Butler's Wharf:
This happens because this far downriver the Thames is actually an estuary all the way to Teddington Lock, well past London.
One notices these things when one has a break in a 4-hour financial accounting class.
I walked across the Thames for dinner tonight—my first time out of the hotel in almost two days—and had a lovely risotto al fresco. On the way back I snapped a photo of the hotel where we've been imprisoned stayed for the past week:
For good measure I also took another gratuitous photo of Tower Bridge:
Because, really, you can't have too many photos of something that cool, right?
They put this out for us every single day:
And this is what happens when it's 29°C in Trafalgar Square:
And, finally, my temporary Summer Office, the Dickens Inn at St. Katharine's Wharf:
All right. Back to work.
I haven't known the day of the week for a few days now, and after today I'm even less sure. My laptop tells me Tuesday.
Since I have about an hour of reading yet, then a class at 8:00 (it's 23:15 now), I will simply post this photo and write about building a raft and climbing a wall sometime later.
School has started. Even though we had an easy day today, I'm knackered, and I still have to revise for tomorrow morning's classes. We did our first team project today, a scavenger hunt of sorts for our Global Markets class that had us wandering the neighborhood around the hotel looking for the prices and origins of a few consumer products. We'll repeat the exercise in each of the next four cities. It turns out you can buy a toothbrush at Tesco's for 54p, a 100-gram Cadbury's bar for £1.30, and an "I Love London" 100% cotton T-shirt made in Turkey for £8. The exercise will probably seem more interesting when we repeat it in Dubai, Delhi, Shanghai, and St. Petersburg. (For some reason we won't repeat the exercise in Durham.)
Off to study. Posting may slow down considerably until the 28th. This is, after all, a slow day, and this is the best I can do.
More from yesterday. First, The Bridge Inn, where I had lunch and and after-hike pint:
Second, you may wonder what a stile is. It's a fence with a board sticking through it that humans can get over easily and cows cannot. Of course, any determined bovine can simply knock through it, but most aren't that determined. Here's an example:
Finally, a house in the village of Amberley. Yes, people actually live in houses like this in England:
I will now, in 15 minutes, start the CCMBA. Wish me luck.
(Apologies to Daphne du Maurier.)
Back in June 1992, I took a day trip to Amberley, West Sussex, and got attacked by cows. Bullocks, actually. Angry half-tonne Jersey bullocks who knew on some fundamental level what would become of their bullock bollocks in just a few weeks. I was walking along their footpath and they stood up—yes, stood up—like Gandalf and bellowed something that sounded a lot like "You shall not pass!"
Today I returned to the scene of the crime. No bullocks anywhere.
One reason for going back was this bridge, which I showed you earlier:
Here it is today:
(By the way, the top image was taken on Kodachrome 64 with a Canon T-90; the bottom one, on a Canon EOS 20D. I'm looking forward to seeing them next to each other on a color-timed monitor instead of my laptop. Comparisons would be appreciated.)
From there, I walked up the path past the Cow Attack of 1992 and another 6 km or so beyond. Along the way, I did encounter some livestock, but these guys were (a) actually cows and (b) quite friendly:
They actually follwed me, single file, across the meadow you see in the background, and then lined up for this group shot. Then they got bored and wandered off. Unlike my last enocounter with cattle on that footpath, I did not run screaming while they chased me all the way to the stile which I then had to leap in a single bound.
I once again ate at The Bridge, the same pub I ate at in 1992. Like many pubs in rural England, they allow dogs. Cassie here was very interested in my ham sandwich:
Finally, a tip. It is possible to get sunburned in the U.K. Sunscreen and hats do less good back at the hotel in London than they do on the hike.