Germany and I walk in the park

Rough couple days for Anglo soccer fans. With the US knocked out, I put all of my chips in with the Three Lions, England's team. Unfortunately, I was disappointed for the second day in a row. I watched the game in a pub with about 200 very angry Brits and 2 very happy German girls. Fun to take part in the atmosphere, not fun to watch England get smoked 4-1.


As I stated, Crosses of St. George were EVERYWHERE in the lead-up to the game. The day after, I didn't see a single one.


After the game, I thought about forgetting my sorrows with an e-reading or whatever they're called but ultimately decided against it. Oh wait, just kidding, I loathe the Church of Scientology. I was even scared to take a photo to be honest. Ask me sometime about my run in with these creeps once in high school.
(wonder if they'll find this post...my life's on the line in the name of art)


Continuing my theme of graffiti from Costa Rica, here's probably the coolest street art I've seen while in London.

Anyways, after Germany's walk in the park against London, I decided to also take a walk in the park to enjoy the sunny day and get away from the sullen British crowds in the streets.

Unfortunately, my walk turned out to be a bit less carefree than I expected. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are two adjacent parks in the western part of the London, the richer part of the city. On the map, the two different parks seemed separated only by a river and I figured they would be pretty similar. I was even surprised they had separate names.

The pretty unappealing Hyde Park. Brown grass, devoid of monuments/statues etc. Ugly buildings visible.


And filled predominantly with immigrants... (Though I did find the pita bread amusing)

On the other side, Kensington Gardens, Italian fountains, much better upkeep, greener grass and...almost all white people. The self-imposed racial/socioeconomic segregation was pretty stark. London has a wildly diverse population but that doesn't always mean much.

Anyways, sorry about the late post, my class has begun and it's pretty time consuming and tiring (but very worthwhile so far). I'd love to post some of my photos, but they're in too large a format to be put up online. Maybe I'll figure something out down the line.

and on (Bloomsbury, University of London) and the Heath

Really liked this sign, and the park, which was designed as a haven for kids. Seriously, no adults allowed without a kid. Well maybe not so seriously, cause I strolled in, with a camera (sketchy?) and snapped away. There were mostly kids and goats.


Nearby, another pretty park. It was a generally green day in London for me.



After spending the first half of the day within the city, I made my way out to the Heath, a giant park on London's northern edge. The sunshine was not abating so I packed a picnic and headed out.


Ate my lunch on Kite Hill and watched the pros at work.



A very pleasant mix of quite wild (there was even more untamed than the first picture shows) and primly managed. In other words, there were places where you could slash through deep brush and be all alone and many other spots where people were swimming in ponds, and playing frisbee or bagpipes. (Interesting thing about the guy playing bagpipes: he was very well-received. British people definitely have a much deeper appreciation and respect for bagpipes than Americans)



Ended my day at the Heath in this beautiful spot. My time there was a bit marred by this obnoxious married couple having a photoshoot among the roses, but I managed.





The incredible house next to the rose terrace. Even they were excited for the US-Ghana match.

So I ended my day at a pub near the Heath with a funny Irish woman and her English husband. She spent two hours shitting on England while her husband spent two hours telling her to shut up since I was trying to watch my team. There were also some obnoxious Americans there who understood soccer so poorly, they cheered every time we scored AND every time Ghana scored.


Well actually, I ended my day here:



An avant-garde movie theatre near my dorm.

London after day one gets top marks.

Go Three Lions!

Big walk continued

Got out of my neighborhood and walked through Islington, to Little Italy (not very Italian) and then towards Bloomsbury.


Saw lots and lots of Crosses of St. George every where. I mean bordering on America in late 2001 level of flag bearing. Thought it was kind of weird and then I got into a conversation with the woman at the cafe where I ate lunch and she explained that all the flags had only come out because of the World Cup. She hoped England would lose so all the ridiculous patriotism would end. It reminded her "too much of America." Hm, fair enough.



An awfully designed playground.

An awfully designed playground in an entirely different way.

Found this on a bench outside of a nice church. Snagged the book, "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler. Seems like a good find. Left the hat and the notebook filled with illegible scrawling.

A big walk part I

Picking up right where the last post left me...
I took a comfy direct flight from Boston to London on Friday morning and got in by Friday night. I slept a lot on the airplane and felt great getting into London so easily. Still, by the time I got to my humble, college-dorm style room I was pretty tired, so I got some awful lamb kebab from the fried chicken/falafel/awful kebab store next door, stopped by an anti-eviction rally/party/dance rave across the street and went to sleep on a not so fun stomach. Or not. I ended up sleeping, optimistically, about 1.5 hours my first night due to terrible jet lag (and terrible dinner). All that time lying in bed gave me a lot of time to plan a big first day on the city. I knew it was going to be a beautiful day and I knew that the more I walked around, the more sun I got etc. the better chance I had of getting over my jetlag. So at 8:30 AM, off I went.

Here's the neighborhood around my dorm, it's not the best area, but it's pretty fun area, youngish and hip.




(Not the best area in London still has some damn fine buildings)


A Greek restaurant across the street from my dorm. I can't tell if I should go here every day, or just avoid it altogether.

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There's a circus college right next door, I hope they're in session?

Starting my trip!

Well I’m off on my big trip! London, Paris, Barcelona, Greece! In case I haven’t told you about it, I’ll be spending the first 5 weeks split between London and Barcelona taking a photography class called Photography and the City. It should be a great class, although I’ve gotten precious little info from them in the 3 months since I booked my spot in the program, but my fingers are crossed and I’m hoping for the best. And well, so far that seems to be working out pretty well. So I thought I was leaving tonight, but it turns out IcelandAir overbooked my flight. Shit. Or not shit? To anyone willing to take a direct flight on British Airways tomorrow morning (a better airline and a direct flight, already got me sold) IcelandAir offered this pot of gold: a free night at the Boston Colonnade, a hotel in downtown Boston, transportation to and from said hotel, free dinner and breakfast at said hotel, AND a free roundtrip ticket to any destination that IcelandAir flies to (i.e. Europe). Wow, they actually had me at hello. The airline threw something like $1000 at me to get to London 8 hours later than I was intending.

Direct flight for tomorrow and the travel voucher is for anywhere, any time. Taking suggestions! Amsterdam?

So I write my first post of what promises to be a great trip in an opulent hotel room, grinning from ear to ear. Looks like the gods are smiling upon this particular voyage. Write from across the Atlantic next, unless any other offers come way...