Blogs from Mile End, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

This weekend, as part of an attempt to make my application for the Goldwater National Scholarship as competitive as possible, North Central funded my travel and participation in the Early Career Mathematicians’ Autumn Conference which was put on by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. I left Friday morning for London, and after taking a bus from the airport into the city, I settled into the hostel. I went and found the hotel that my family and I are staying at when we are back for Christmas, and I was able to find a nice restaurant that we can have Christmas dinner at. That evening, I met my friend Mackenzie, who I knew from high school, and a few of her friends that she was traveling with for dinner. We walked around for a bit ... read more

Today was our main sightseeing day. We had planned to make it to Buckingham Palace in time to see the changing of the guards which they do everyday. Walking through the park by the Palace and stopping to have a look at the cute squirrels on the way. Surprising they put on a pretty big performance with horses, a band and a lot of guards when all they were doing was changing over two guards. We couldn’t work out if they do that everyday or once a week or if they were even practicing for the Queens parade which was in a few weeks. It was still great to see and the crowds were huge! Luckily we got there early so Sophia and I were able to get a good place right up by the gate ... read more

Sunday was our market day. Our first market on the list was the Columbia Road flower market. I’d never seen so much people on such a small and narrow street it was absolutely packed with people. It was a mission to get in one side and out the other. We pretty much just went there for a look as it would have been pointless to buy anything. While pushing through the crowd to get out the other end it was funny listening to all the sellers trying to draw people in with their great deals, ‘Two for a fiver’ and ‘three for a tenner’ all in the British accent of course. From there we walked to Brick Lane known for its vintage clothes and accessories also another popular street on a Sunday. Unlike Columbia Road Brick ... read more

We flew to London on Wednesday for 5 days to see the royal weddng which was on Friday. We stayed at my Aunty Rhondas' house which was a bit tight on space but it was alright. We woke up early and planned to leave the house around 9 o'clock to face the streets of London. We got outside and the streets were pretty much empty. We caught the bus to Oxford Circus. We then walked to South Bank. There was a big screen there so you could watch the wedding but there were only about 20 people there. We were surprised how empty the place was. Along with watching the wedding from the London streets we also wanted to be apart of the atsomspheire. We decided to carry on walking to the next big screen. The ... read more

Here is my planned trip. Hope you can all see the map! I can't see it when I'm writing. The maroon sections are the states I'll be visiting, and the blue sections are the states I'm going to travel through to get to the maroons. Haryana should be in blue but for some reason the map won't save the changes here. I'm planning to visit: Kolkata (West Bengal) Darjeeling (West Bengal) Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) Amritsar (Punjab) Delhi (Delhi) Agra (Uttar Pradesh) Mumbai (Maharashtra) Goa (Goa) Kochi/ Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) So it goes in a kind of anticlockwise direction startin... read more