Blogs from Trafalgar Square, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Today we went to the National Gallery near TS in London. It just so happens that the premier of the last Harry Potter film was on this same day, right next door to the National Gallery. There. Were. People. Everywhere....Screaming! If you don't like crowds then London is not the place for you. The subways are packed at 11PM on a week night - and that is normal for London. I saw a lot of art today. I have a new found appreciation for it. At the National Gallery they let you get right up close to the paintings, even the LD paintings. Two particular favorites of mine are "The Rokeby Venus" by Diego Velazquez (1647), and "The Virgin Child With St. Anne and St. John the Baptist" by Leonardo da Vinci (1452). It is truly ... read more

Had an excellent hors d’oeuvre for my holiday watching the opening ceremony/ game down in Trafalgar Square …. An excellent atmosphere - although of course nothing like the real thing next week. There were even a fair few vuvuzalas - although fortunately I didn’t dream about being attacked by hornets!!!!!!!! Just about got over the hang-over when its time to do it all again for Eng-er-land.... read more

I går var der Thailand Festival på Trafalgar Sq. Det var Thailands ambassade der arrangerede det for at få folk interesserede i Thailands kultur og for at tiltrække turister selvfølgelig:) Da jeg var der var der en flok mænd på scenen der fremviste kampsport. På det ene billede har en mand lige sparket en tennisbold ud af hånden på en mand der sad på skuldrene af en anden mand! ... read more

Today we left Brighton and took the train back to London. We took the 10:55am Southern train and arrived at London Victoria at 12:06pm. The Underground ticket machine wouldn’t read the card we were trying to use (Travel tip: Use cash to buy tube tickets! It’s so much quicker!) so we waited in the long queue instead to buy our one-day travel cards. After taking care of that, we took the tube from Victoria Station to Pimlico, where our hotel is located (Blades Hotel, same one we stayed at when we started our trip). We checked in, dropped off our bags, and then walked to Westminster Abbey to visit the gift shop because it was closed the last time we tried to go (we wanted post cards because you can’t take pictures of the inside of ... read more

Finally I decided to do one of my dream trips and that was London for Christmas. I have made numerous trips to London over the years. Dec 23rd the trip, the weather was rainy icy first our plane had to go over to see if it needed to be de-iced I felt like this little toy way traveling over watched the de-icer work and we were told nope we dint need de-icing. We drove back to the run way we were told we were #2 for take off after sitting a bit we were told now it was icy rain it was mandatory to be de-iced. We "drove" back and then they told us it was it was rainy/icy too heavy so we would not be able to take off unless it warmed up a bit ... read more

Tonight, I am meeting Catherine and Stephanie and a couple of Stephanie's friends in front of the National Gallery to watch the Christmas tree lighting in Trafalgar Square. This is one of my favorite parts of the city, probably because the square is such a wide-open space, and I tend to like those. I am the first to arrive, and shortly after, a choir begins to sing Christmas carols. The tree is very tall, but the branches are sparse, and the needles sag sadly. The choir sounds like a volunteer church choir. Catherine calls me, and we spend ten minutes trying to navigate through the crowd to find each other. Once we've hugged our "hellos", Catherine turns toward the tree, "Wow, that's a sad tree." I laugh, "Yeah, I know! I guess I was expecting Rockefeller ... read more

Back in London! Well, I'm back in London and man, is it cold. I think it is below zero right now and I definitely do not have appropriate clothing. I may actually get hypothermia when I go to Montreal, but I'll deal with that when the time comes. Anyway, not so happy to be back, within the first 30 minutes of arriving back in this lovely city a man and a woman got in a screaming match in the airport over nothing, someone cursed at me on the tube for having a large backpack and I was caught on CCTV approximately 449540945 times. It is strange to be so anonymous all of a sudden after spending the last 3 weeks with people constantly screaming "Mazunga, mazunga" at me as I walked down the street (loose translation ... read more

I realized that last time I didn't get to talk about my doctors appointment. Not that it is crucial you know all about it, I just thought that some Americans, which would include most of my audience, would be interested in my first experience of a socialist healtcare system. I'm not even sure if they consider themselves socialist, but they most definately are. First of all, my doctors office is Soho Square Health Centre, or something like that. It is also the national Chinese health care centre. So you can imagine my confusion when everyone, doctors, nurses, and patients were Chinese. Even the forms I was filling out had Chinese as a primary language. The nurse was coming out and calling all these strange names and for a second I thought 'what if she thinks I ... read more