Allright -- I think I am settling on blogger/blogspot as my ultimate blogger choice. It seems to be less cluttered than other blog sites...
Anyway, here goes my first official blog entry. It's Sunday right now and I have done nil work yesterday or on friday eve. I think at MIT we have this habit of procrastinating -- the general notion is that MIT students like to party on Fridays and Saturdays (note: party does not mean drinking liquor, it also sort of means hanging out with friends, et cetera...)
Anyway, some of you may know -- I am seriously considering going to Europe this January/IAP... however, some of my friends are not sure of their winter plans. If you would like to join me, email or IM me... I would like to try skiing in the Alps at some point, or maybe just stroll through the nice riverfronts of Seine, Danube and through narrow streets. true, I have been to UK in the beginning of last summer -- though it was a weeklong trip -- I saw so much during that time. I got to experience Cambridge, UK (north of London), and Windsor Castle west of London. I think I have pretty much seen all of London in 3 days. I think if you go to London for more than 3 days, you can basically not go sightseeing anymore, just hang out at london's pubs. Definitely visit The George pub, and walk around the inns of the court. It is a nice place in the city, just off The Strand (a famous London street filled with news agencies and law offices). You will not find the entrance to the inns of court easily -- you have to really know where it is. It sort of looks like a small archway to some yard, and once you go through it, you'll be in a different world. A pretty quiet world, i must admit (after all don't all law students need some peace and a quiet place to study?) If you are lucky you could bump onto barristers (if you have no idea who a barrister is, you should watch the movie "A Fish called Wanda").
My schedule in London was like this:
Day one:
Yang met me at Heathrow Airport and then we took the Paddington Express train to King's Cross train station where we left my luggage at the baggage storage place. I would be spending nights in Cambridge, UK, where Yang is a student. Then we started the adventure in the city. We took the Tube (yup, thets what Britons call the London Subway. The word "subway" actually means something else -- it is the underpass under a busy street. Think SUB-Way!), got off at Westminster Station. It was Saturday or Sunday, I don't remember, and we ended up walking up into the crowd. There were soo many tourists -- you can tell by just observing if theya re holding a tourbook. I was surprised to see that many of the tourists spoke Russian and were reading Russian tour books. The street was really really crowded, basically people breathed one ach others' necks. It was a total chaos! It was ahrd enough to even take pictures of the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (also known as Westminster Palace). I had to hold my camera up to take any clear shots, and pictures with me in it and big ben in the background were ruled out. Yang and I decided not to go on the Westminster Bridge because of the human traffic congestion.
We walked on the riverfront of Thames on the Westminster side. I did not sleep much on the plane, but I did not feel so sleepy ebcause of the excitement. For those of you who don't know me -- even if I am dead tired, but excited, I will not collapse into sleep in the middle of the street. (a side note: your day becomes 5 hours shorter if you fly to London from NYC), so if you leave U.S. early in the evening, you'll land at heathrow in the wee hours of the morning (wee hours for me is anything till 8am). basically, you can then claim that you have not slept for 2 days straight, though that would be cheating a little because your two days is 5 hours shorter)
Anyway, I always digress from the topic, so getting back on the track! Yang and I crossed Thames on the bridge connecting Charring Cross train station on Westminster side to the south embankment (waterloo side). We ended up walking all the way to Westminster Bridge on the south bank, passing by London Eye (a.k.a Millennium Eye is the largest observation (ferris) wheel in the world). I was getting tired and hungry, so we bought some ice cream. I didn't feel like this ice cream was any special (it was a soft yogurt kind of ice cream). The best street ice cream I have ever had is sold on the streets of moscow (just look for vendors with freezer ice-cream carts, and ask for "plombir" if you are in moscow).
When we got to Westminster bridge, there were still many people there, and we walked to Big Ben and houses of parliament. The crowds were not that heavy on the big ben side of the bridge (maybe because of bridge construction going on on that side and tall fence was obstructing the view of the wiver to the west of Westminster Bridge). I finally was able to ask yang to take a shot of me with Big Ben in the background! Woo hoo!
After crawling through the crowd around houses of parliament and reaching Westminster Abbey (the ultimate rest place of Kings), we found out that it had just closed. I think we got there ar around 3/4PM. I would visit the Abbey alone during one of my several trips to London later on.
My next destination was the Trafalgar Square and National Gallery of Arts. We walked down the Whitehall (a wide boulevard that passes many government buildings such as department of treasury, defence, and Downing Street. I even took the picture of the Downing Street sign! The street itself was fences and abrricaded and there were several armed guards at the outposts. There were also many people standing by the fence -- everyone wanting to catch a glimpse of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. If you look through the fence, you can see the black brick building that is 11 Downing Street -- the official residence of the Primer Minister of UK. Not far from the downing Street there were two horsemen in the red uniform and polished hats/helmets. Those were Horse Guards. There is a Horse Guards Parade held once every summer to officially celebrate the Queen's birthday. The parade grounds were just a short walk from the Whitehall past the archway flanked by horse guards (there were 2 or 3 guards). (A fun fact: This parade ground will be the site for beach volleyball during 2012 olympic games in london.) When we reached Trafalgar Square, I thought I'd see the square's main attraction -- Nelson's column. However, to my dismay, the column had been cordoned off and covered with construction rack and draped in some sort of blue cover depicting the column underwater. too bad...
Also, Trafalgar Square is the final stop for many of the London's double-decker busses, so expect to see lots and lots of red busses around teh square. they almost form a complete circle around teh square.
We had lunch at Subway's sandwich shop just off trafalgar Square on the Strand (they have same subway's in UK as in the States). Actually there were too many people in the shop, so we ended up eating by the fountains on the Square and making sure that no pigeons come close to us (hehe... actually by mayor of london's decree, feeding of birds in Trafalgar Square is disallowed).
Still feeling lots of energy, we went into the National gallery and National portrait Gallery. All national museums in london are free of charge -- just like in Washington DC. I did not want to pay money for short stay, so it was all good. We focused mostly on Impressionist and Rembrandt paintings. I really wanted to see the famous portrait of Elizabeth I and of William Shakespeare. However, the shakespeare portrait was actually on tour in the U.S. (at the same time I was out of the U.S.). Howe sad! And i could not find the Elizabethian portrait that i have seen in art books. Many of you don't know but i admire good art, especially impressionitst paintings and landscapes, and artists who like to play with light, like Rembrandt. (to be honest, ever since I saw Paul Cezanne's landscape paintings, I have always wanted to visit European countryside. If you have seen it, try to remember Chateau Noir -- which depicts a house perched on the side of the hill, lit brightly by the sunset. I'd like to own such a house sometime in the future...
From Trafalgar Square, we decided to walk all the way along Pall Mall to the buckingham palace -- the royal residence of monarchy. Pall Mall is a street that is pretty heavy with traffic sometimes (traffic goes in opposite direction unlike U.S. traffic), but I heard that this street is closed off on Sundays, so people can stroll on it from Trafalgar Square to the Buckingham Palace and back.
To my disappointment, the palace building itself is not very attractive. It certainly empowers you, but only because you know that he Queen resides there and because there are guards in the red. The extrerior of the palace is nothing out of extraordinary. It's just a dull grey building. Ah, now that I am bored by buckingham palace, let me talk about taxicabs in London. A lot if not all of cabs in the city are black "Hackney carriages". They all look like mini coopers (slighly larger version, but the shape is the same) with a TAXI sign perched atop them. Virtually all cabs in London are black cabs like that. This certainly brings the old look to the city. The cabs look old, though on closer observation, one can tell that they have modern fittings and possibly modern engine.
Our next destination was Hyde park -- the largest park in London, not far from Buckingham palace. It looks just like central park with lakes and stuff, and sort of reminded me of some of the eduard manet, claude monet, and Renoir paintings where gents in tuxs and long hats and dames with umbrellas stroll down the masonic trails. While people around us were dressed in plain clothes, I still felt like i was in the impressionist paintings. Maybe it was because I was in Europe. Oh, and you can definitely compare that to boston Commons if you haven't been to Central park in NYC.
I also wanted to see the Speaker's Corner that one of my TAs liked to talk about. He told us that he actually tried giving a speech there. Apparently Speaker's Corner is famous for public gatherings there on Sundays (I think) and some member of the public would give a speech on any topic, and otehrs would listen. Of course, I think the speech should be something interesting and entertaining, otherwise, the only audience you would get would be pigeons. I am not talking about trying to explain how transistors work -- most of people in London don't give a shit about very specific topics.
Since we were there on Saturday, the place /corner was empty. So we decided to go to Leicester Square to get something to eat. We took the Tube there. Leicester Square is a center of theatre disctrict in the city. there are many musical theaters and movie theaters in this part of the city. It was quite crowded, and we ended up eating at one of the steakhouses. I forget the name of the place, but yang said that it was a steakhouse chain (they have 2 steakhouses in leicester square alone). the steak was quite good!!!
From there we headed to Piccadilly Circus which was a short walk. I wanted to see what the Times Square of London was like. Seriously the Times Square in NYC beats Piccadilly Circus! There is only one building with neon/screen boards (and most of it was covered in TDK). Feeling a little drowsy, and seeing that the time was after 9PM (UK time, not ET time), we went down to teh Tube and back to the King's Cross station where we boarded the train to Cambridge. The train was really really quiet unlike trains in the U.S. It was also much smoother ride than on any of teh commuter trains in the U.S., but ocassionally the car would swing from side to side. I wouldn't know because my head was so heavy and I was basically sleeping on the train though I really wanted to look out the windows. It was too dark outside anywya, so i did not miss much.
OK, I think i got carried away with this post. It should have been a much shorter post, but once I start anything, its very hard to stop, be it writing, or painting, or playing computer games. Of course, this is why i don't even start playing computer games!
Anyway, here goes my first official blog entry. It's Sunday right now and I have done nil work yesterday or on friday eve. I think at MIT we have this habit of procrastinating -- the general notion is that MIT students like to party on Fridays and Saturdays (note: party does not mean drinking liquor, it also sort of means hanging out with friends, et cetera...)
Anyway, some of you may know -- I am seriously considering going to Europe this January/IAP... however, some of my friends are not sure of their winter plans. If you would like to join me, email or IM me... I would like to try skiing in the Alps at some point, or maybe just stroll through the nice riverfronts of Seine, Danube and through narrow streets. true, I have been to UK in the beginning of last summer -- though it was a weeklong trip -- I saw so much during that time. I got to experience Cambridge, UK (north of London), and Windsor Castle west of London. I think I have pretty much seen all of London in 3 days. I think if you go to London for more than 3 days, you can basically not go sightseeing anymore, just hang out at london's pubs. Definitely visit The George pub, and walk around the inns of the court. It is a nice place in the city, just off The Strand (a famous London street filled with news agencies and law offices). You will not find the entrance to the inns of court easily -- you have to really know where it is. It sort of looks like a small archway to some yard, and once you go through it, you'll be in a different world. A pretty quiet world, i must admit (after all don't all law students need some peace and a quiet place to study?) If you are lucky you could bump onto barristers (if you have no idea who a barrister is, you should watch the movie "A Fish called Wanda").
My schedule in London was like this:
Day one:
Yang met me at Heathrow Airport and then we took the Paddington Express train to King's Cross train station where we left my luggage at the baggage storage place. I would be spending nights in Cambridge, UK, where Yang is a student. Then we started the adventure in the city. We took the Tube (yup, thets what Britons call the London Subway. The word "subway" actually means something else -- it is the underpass under a busy street. Think SUB-Way!), got off at Westminster Station. It was Saturday or Sunday, I don't remember, and we ended up walking up into the crowd. There were soo many tourists -- you can tell by just observing if theya re holding a tourbook. I was surprised to see that many of the tourists spoke Russian and were reading Russian tour books. The street was really really crowded, basically people breathed one ach others' necks. It was a total chaos! It was ahrd enough to even take pictures of the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (also known as Westminster Palace). I had to hold my camera up to take any clear shots, and pictures with me in it and big ben in the background were ruled out. Yang and I decided not to go on the Westminster Bridge because of the human traffic congestion.
We walked on the riverfront of Thames on the Westminster side. I did not sleep much on the plane, but I did not feel so sleepy ebcause of the excitement. For those of you who don't know me -- even if I am dead tired, but excited, I will not collapse into sleep in the middle of the street. (a side note: your day becomes 5 hours shorter if you fly to London from NYC), so if you leave U.S. early in the evening, you'll land at heathrow in the wee hours of the morning (wee hours for me is anything till 8am). basically, you can then claim that you have not slept for 2 days straight, though that would be cheating a little because your two days is 5 hours shorter)
Anyway, I always digress from the topic, so getting back on the track! Yang and I crossed Thames on the bridge connecting Charring Cross train station on Westminster side to the south embankment (waterloo side). We ended up walking all the way to Westminster Bridge on the south bank, passing by London Eye (a.k.a Millennium Eye is the largest observation (ferris) wheel in the world). I was getting tired and hungry, so we bought some ice cream. I didn't feel like this ice cream was any special (it was a soft yogurt kind of ice cream). The best street ice cream I have ever had is sold on the streets of moscow (just look for vendors with freezer ice-cream carts, and ask for "plombir" if you are in moscow).
When we got to Westminster bridge, there were still many people there, and we walked to Big Ben and houses of parliament. The crowds were not that heavy on the big ben side of the bridge (maybe because of bridge construction going on on that side and tall fence was obstructing the view of the wiver to the west of Westminster Bridge). I finally was able to ask yang to take a shot of me with Big Ben in the background! Woo hoo!
After crawling through the crowd around houses of parliament and reaching Westminster Abbey (the ultimate rest place of Kings), we found out that it had just closed. I think we got there ar around 3/4PM. I would visit the Abbey alone during one of my several trips to London later on.
My next destination was the Trafalgar Square and National Gallery of Arts. We walked down the Whitehall (a wide boulevard that passes many government buildings such as department of treasury, defence, and Downing Street. I even took the picture of the Downing Street sign! The street itself was fences and abrricaded and there were several armed guards at the outposts. There were also many people standing by the fence -- everyone wanting to catch a glimpse of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. If you look through the fence, you can see the black brick building that is 11 Downing Street -- the official residence of the Primer Minister of UK. Not far from the downing Street there were two horsemen in the red uniform and polished hats/helmets. Those were Horse Guards. There is a Horse Guards Parade held once every summer to officially celebrate the Queen's birthday. The parade grounds were just a short walk from the Whitehall past the archway flanked by horse guards (there were 2 or 3 guards). (A fun fact: This parade ground will be the site for beach volleyball during 2012 olympic games in london.) When we reached Trafalgar Square, I thought I'd see the square's main attraction -- Nelson's column. However, to my dismay, the column had been cordoned off and covered with construction rack and draped in some sort of blue cover depicting the column underwater. too bad...
Also, Trafalgar Square is the final stop for many of the London's double-decker busses, so expect to see lots and lots of red busses around teh square. they almost form a complete circle around teh square.
We had lunch at Subway's sandwich shop just off trafalgar Square on the Strand (they have same subway's in UK as in the States). Actually there were too many people in the shop, so we ended up eating by the fountains on the Square and making sure that no pigeons come close to us (hehe... actually by mayor of london's decree, feeding of birds in Trafalgar Square is disallowed).
Still feeling lots of energy, we went into the National gallery and National portrait Gallery. All national museums in london are free of charge -- just like in Washington DC. I did not want to pay money for short stay, so it was all good. We focused mostly on Impressionist and Rembrandt paintings. I really wanted to see the famous portrait of Elizabeth I and of William Shakespeare. However, the shakespeare portrait was actually on tour in the U.S. (at the same time I was out of the U.S.). Howe sad! And i could not find the Elizabethian portrait that i have seen in art books. Many of you don't know but i admire good art, especially impressionitst paintings and landscapes, and artists who like to play with light, like Rembrandt. (to be honest, ever since I saw Paul Cezanne's landscape paintings, I have always wanted to visit European countryside. If you have seen it, try to remember Chateau Noir -- which depicts a house perched on the side of the hill, lit brightly by the sunset. I'd like to own such a house sometime in the future...
From Trafalgar Square, we decided to walk all the way along Pall Mall to the buckingham palace -- the royal residence of monarchy. Pall Mall is a street that is pretty heavy with traffic sometimes (traffic goes in opposite direction unlike U.S. traffic), but I heard that this street is closed off on Sundays, so people can stroll on it from Trafalgar Square to the Buckingham Palace and back.
To my disappointment, the palace building itself is not very attractive. It certainly empowers you, but only because you know that he Queen resides there and because there are guards in the red. The extrerior of the palace is nothing out of extraordinary. It's just a dull grey building. Ah, now that I am bored by buckingham palace, let me talk about taxicabs in London. A lot if not all of cabs in the city are black "Hackney carriages". They all look like mini coopers (slighly larger version, but the shape is the same) with a TAXI sign perched atop them. Virtually all cabs in London are black cabs like that. This certainly brings the old look to the city. The cabs look old, though on closer observation, one can tell that they have modern fittings and possibly modern engine.
Our next destination was Hyde park -- the largest park in London, not far from Buckingham palace. It looks just like central park with lakes and stuff, and sort of reminded me of some of the eduard manet, claude monet, and Renoir paintings where gents in tuxs and long hats and dames with umbrellas stroll down the masonic trails. While people around us were dressed in plain clothes, I still felt like i was in the impressionist paintings. Maybe it was because I was in Europe. Oh, and you can definitely compare that to boston Commons if you haven't been to Central park in NYC.
I also wanted to see the Speaker's Corner that one of my TAs liked to talk about. He told us that he actually tried giving a speech there. Apparently Speaker's Corner is famous for public gatherings there on Sundays (I think) and some member of the public would give a speech on any topic, and otehrs would listen. Of course, I think the speech should be something interesting and entertaining, otherwise, the only audience you would get would be pigeons. I am not talking about trying to explain how transistors work -- most of people in London don't give a shit about very specific topics.
Since we were there on Saturday, the place /corner was empty. So we decided to go to Leicester Square to get something to eat. We took the Tube there. Leicester Square is a center of theatre disctrict in the city. there are many musical theaters and movie theaters in this part of the city. It was quite crowded, and we ended up eating at one of the steakhouses. I forget the name of the place, but yang said that it was a steakhouse chain (they have 2 steakhouses in leicester square alone). the steak was quite good!!!
From there we headed to Piccadilly Circus which was a short walk. I wanted to see what the Times Square of London was like. Seriously the Times Square in NYC beats Piccadilly Circus! There is only one building with neon/screen boards (and most of it was covered in TDK). Feeling a little drowsy, and seeing that the time was after 9PM (UK time, not ET time), we went down to teh Tube and back to the King's Cross station where we boarded the train to Cambridge. The train was really really quiet unlike trains in the U.S. It was also much smoother ride than on any of teh commuter trains in the U.S., but ocassionally the car would swing from side to side. I wouldn't know because my head was so heavy and I was basically sleeping on the train though I really wanted to look out the windows. It was too dark outside anywya, so i did not miss much.
OK, I think i got carried away with this post. It should have been a much shorter post, but once I start anything, its very hard to stop, be it writing, or painting, or playing computer games. Of course, this is why i don't even start playing computer games!
posted by Dmitry at 11:51 AM
0 comments
