London Sights

It was a blustery weekend in London, but nevertheless I braved the wind and schizophrenic rain to take in some of the sights and sounds. Below are my reflections on four of the places I visited in London.

St. Paul's Cathedral

Really a great piece of architecture, though if you've seen many cathedrals in Europe this one is not going to be too much different. Great big halls, wonderful statues and paintings, and a very interesting history. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that you can climb up to the very top of the dome, to a blacony from which you get an absolutely stellar view of all London (if you have the stamina....some people were having quite a tough time of it....530 steps in all).

The Tate Museum

I was looking forward to this one. The Tate is London's modern art museum, and is fantastic not only in its collection of work, but also in the architecture of the building itself. It's an imposing structure on the south bank of the Thames, and many tourists find themselves confronted with it unexpectedly since the 'Millenium Bridge' leads right to its doorstep. And lucky them. Free to the public like the rest of the museums in London, I was glad to see many people contemplating Picasso, Rothko, and others. I was sad to miss out on the exhibit on Urban Photography, which alas was a special exhibition for which they were charging a hefty entrance price.

The Cabinet War Rooms / Churchill Museum

This is a great find for military history enthusiasts, such as myself. Carefully hidden around the corner from Parliment and Big Ben, it does not get nearly the tourist traffic of other, more glitzy destinations. It's fairly small and unimpressive from the entrance...but don't be fooled. The free audio tour is great, and the Churchill museum is quite impressive. The underground warren is dimly lit, and its not too hard to imagine Churchill and his war cabinet huddling in these smoke filled roooms and debating the wisdom of a southern front, or when the Americans would finally join the war. Very cool. Also, in the Churchill museum you can hear audio recordings of many of his more famous speeches.

The British Library

If the Cabinet War Rooms are relatively less frequented by tourists, then the British Library is almost deserted. This is probably because it suffers not only from a non-impressive entrance, but also because it is distant from most other sights in London, and not especially good for young children (it is, after all, a library). But if you are a dork like me, you'll love this place. Particularly impressive is the Sir John Ritblat Gallery, which has some fantastic works on display. Here you can see the oldest known copy of Beowulf, a Gutenberg Bible, the Magna Carta, original works of Da Vinci, Aristotle, as well as more recent items like Lewis Carroll's diary (opened to the page where he remarks upon finishing a story for Alice about getting lost down a rabbit hole).

Incredible Tennis

Yesterday afternoon I took out some work, turned on the television, and thought I'd finish editing a paper while watching the Men's Wimbeldon Final.

Four hours later, I had done almost no work.

If you are a tennis fan and you missed this one, I highly recommend watching a repeat of the match. Even if you know who wins, the quality of the tennis was just phenomenal. It had everything one could want from a sporting event: high stakes, great opponents, amazing quality of play, back and forth momentum swings, and an unknown victor until the last second. It was easily one of the best tennis matches I have ever seen. This is what tennis is supposed to be.

In the end Nadal prevailed, but to me the winner is less important than the game. I hope to see a vigorous and healthy Nadal-Federer rivalry for years to come, producing some more of this world-class tennis.

First Impressions

I arrived in London on Saturday for a 6 week adventure in the land of meat pies and pudding, and was greeted by glorious sunshine. In fact, today is the first day that it has rained, which means I had four days of beautiful sunshine and great weather to get acquainted with London.

My first day was filled with rather mundane stuff: arrival at the airport, getting unpacked and situated in my new apartment, buying groceries, a local phone, etc. The most exciting aspect of this day, by far, was my new apartment. It's a one-bedroom apartment about double the size of my studio in New York (about the size of Navin's place). Not only that, but it's a full service apartment, which means that a maid comes by once a day to clean up, make my bed, even do my dishes! It also happens to be situated in one of the swankier parts of London (Chelsea, by Sloane Square). The first night I went out to dinner with two other Summer Associates from New York, and I saw the following in 5 minutes: 1 ferarri, 2 aston martin's, and 3 porsche's. Craziness.

My second day was sunny and warm, so I set out on foot with a friend to explore the city. If you'd like to follow along on a map, we started on Sloane Ave in Chelsea, walked up through Hyde Park, then east along Oxford street until we came to the British museum. The northeast corner of Hyde Park has a distinctive tradition: people take turns speaking (usually from on top of a box, or chair, or some other raised platform) on whatever topic takes their fancy, while a crowd of people stand by and listen or participate. It's like a semi-official soapbox with an interesting history....it's a popular place for protests, and a good place for entertainment. Anyway, when we got there some guy was going on about how the Bible does not allow you to have multiple wives. Apparently political topics normally dominate, but I guess on Sundays perhaps people get religious.

The British museum was impressive. One notable aspect about most museums in London is that they are free to the public, which is wonderful. It means that I don't feel compelled to stay and see as much as possible in one visit, and instead can return at my leisure to visit different exhibits. Two of the most exciting items I saw were the Rosetta Stone, and some ruins from the Parthenon (which has engendered some recent controversy). We then walked down to the Thames, along the south bank (passing the eye of London), and back to the apartments. In all I'd say I walked for about 6 hours, which is a good long time, and my feet were hurting. Nonetheless, I went to a local pub and had some Guiness later that evening.

On the third day I started work, of which I'll say little in these postings, because, well, it's work. Nothing much to say. The people are great, the office space is nice, and the lunch is heavily subsidized (one pound!). Let me take a minute here to discuss the ubiquitous topic of price. Yes, London is expensive. Yes, more expensive than New York. Yes, by a lot. Seriously, the only thing that's reasonably priced around here is beer and pub food (go figure). A box of cereal costs 6 dollars, a monthly subway pass costs 200 dollars, and dry cleaning one pair of pants is 12 dollars. Unreal.

So here I am, five days into my London excursion. It's not very much time, so I plan to take advantage of what I can while I'm here. This weekend will be dedicated to exploring and getting more acquainted with London....some more museums, open air markets, and perhaps some of that local Indian food that's supposed to be so good. Next weekend I'll head to the English countryside I think.