London, lately

Well, the last post had little response, and I wasn't too impressed with it myself, so it's due time to supersede it, but I have nothing profound to say... Then again, perhaps you don't expect me to, and are just as glad for me to temporarily curtail my efforts...

Any rate, as you may've gathered from the last post, I've headed south (ish)from Edinburgh, to Nottingham, and for the first bit of this week, I went on down again to olde London town for another few days with my friends there. Yeny, from Colombia, is heading out for Dallas next week, and we thought we should play the tourist game around the olde city again before we both take our indeterminate leave of the United Kingdom. I was there for all of 48 hours, and managed to have 2 nice dinners out, passed through the Tate Museum of Modern Art, the UK's tallest escalator, in Angel underground station, climbed the 311 step Monument, and straddled the Prime Meridian, in Greenwich. There were other things (It was a regular whirlwind), but those were some of the big ones, which I plan to illustrate just below...

Y'all have a great week.
jeffro



From Left: Yeny, Basak (From Turkey. This was her going away party, as she flew out a matter of hours later...), Michela and Demis, from Italy, Saida from France, and Angelica, mi solita o solicita o solecita (mi español es muy mal), from Colombia.



Me, after a long day, descending the escalator to the Jubilee line at Angel Underground Station.



The escalator at Angel again, but rotated over 90 degrees. I like the way the lines, light, and reflections look in this shot. The escalator bears its passengers up 30 metres (about 100 feet)!



Yeny and her German friend, Dorothee, working their way down the spiral staircase within the monument that commemorates the 1666 London Fire, that started 202 feet from the Monument's location (interestingly enough, that's how they determined what height to make the Monument. Whether they liked the number 202 and located it at this distance from the origin accordingly, or this just happened to be the only free bit of optional landscaping, I don't know.) They are about a dozen steps down, so there's only another 299 more to go...



I like doing reflection pictures. This is me taking a picture of Yeny and myself in the glass window out of which looks the telescope that defines the Prime Meridian. I am thus standing equally east and west, globally speaking. The gentleman over my left shoulder was apparently quite curious...


It is now 1.50 am, Greenwich Mean Time (so named for the London suburb wherein the above photograph was snapped), and though I would love to be only breathing, and nothing more phsysically, my head cradled in the arm of the couch at the house belonging to Juan, Giuliana, Alex, and Griselda here in Dunkirk, a cleanly sleeved duvet maintaining my body heat, the little, rat-like pet that Juan is hampster-sitting (who has also taken up residence, cage and all, in the sitting room)has gotten up for his daily calisthenics. He's surely rolled out a good mile and a half thus far on that blasted wheel, so the meat should be nice and lean, when I eat him in about another three and a half minutes, or after the next hundred yard dash, depending on how soon the oven's ready...

Dad-dratted, noisy little bugger.

Mmmmmmmmm, hampster...