Pictures Of The Trip

I have gotten most of my pictures up on the web. Click here to view them.

Vacation Over

Well, I am back now and the trip is over. It was a lot of fun. I can't say that traveling all alone is too exciting, but backpacking is a wonderful experience when you are young and can still put up with all the difficulties of hostels and public transportation.

I will be filling in the blog with pictures as soon as possible.

Long Flight

I got the chance to see 5 movies on the airplane back from London:

Capote(2.5 stars)
Fun with Dick and Jane (3 stars)
Prime (3.5 stars)
Memoirs of a Geisha (3 stars)
Bad News Bears (2 stars)

That was a long flight, plus it was delayed 1.5 hrs in Heathrow, which is never very fun.

Air Traffic Control Sucks And So Does Virgin Atlantic

I missed my flight home to SFO. My flight from Brussels was about 50 minutes late because of technical difficulties and the air traffic. And when you get to Heathrow and make a stink about queuing because you are late for your flight, you get through the terminal pretty fast, but you can't stop Virgin Atlantic from their automatic computer shutdown 1 hour before your flight. Thus, you are screwed. They hapilly routed me to LA and said I was on my own from there. It's a long walk to Newark from LA, so I have to spring for a Southwest flight.

Bruges

This was a beautiful city... probably the best on the trip. My first stop was the chocolate museum of course. They showed how chocolate is produced and told about the history of the use of chocolate. I didn't know that the Aztecs used it as currency. It's kind of strange to think that you could either have enough cocoa beans for a hot chocolate or enough to buy a full feast.

Next was the bell tower. You get a great look at the city from the top. The day started out a bit rainy but turned out okay in the late afternoon. Regardless, the view was pretty good.

This town had 4 old wooden windmills no longer in use. I got some good pictures.

Other than that, I walked around an awful lot and took a lot more pictures per mile walked than all the other places I have visited.

Off To Bruges

I am on my way to Bruges for a day trip. I hope it will be exciting. I have one more night in my Brussels hostel and then my vacation is over. :(

It was quite an adventure.

Brussels

Friday morning, I got up early to do some sight seeing and to see the Museum of Fine and Modern Art when it opened at 10. I took a long stroll through a market before a couple hours in the museum.

I ended up randomly meeting someone on the train from Amsterdam, and we decided to meet up and hike around Brussels. It was nice to have a buddy willing to do about 5 miles of hiking around the city to see the sites. I took lots of pictures which I will post when I get back.

London Flash Back

I went to see Queen with Paul Rodgers last night. At one point Brian May did a phenomenal guitar solo with a backdrop of footage from London streets. I got very excited. Then the camera rounded a corner and I thought, "Hey, that’s Charing Cross Road." I can't decide if it is cool or scary that I knew that.

Walking Aroung Brussels

I spent most of the day walking around Brussels and seeing all the magnificent architecture here.

European Parliament
They give free audio tours of parliament so that was my first stop here. It turned out to be pretty long and boring, but I did get to see the main meeting and debate room. That was pretty much the core of the tour.

The Hague

I had a late start Wednesday because I ended up staying up too late with the Canadians, and then the Irish men that joined our group.

Wednesday was spent at The Hague and I walked all over the place. I must have put 5 miles on my sneakers. The Hague was a pleasant little town where all the main sites are within walking distance.

Torture museum:
This was a tour of an old prison where they would hold people who were on trial. The tour was all in Dutch but I there was a little pamphlet telling the story of one governor falsely accused of conspiracy and consequently being tortured and killed there.

In the evening, I went to the beach to get some rest and relaxation in the near freezing temperature.

Red Light District

So I am catching up on the blog here while on the train to Brussels.

Tuesday evening was spent on a walking tour of the Red Light District where I saw the sketchy side of Amsterdam. While asking someone to take my picture, I ended up meeting a group of three Canadians whom I hung out with for the evening. It sure beat walking around the cold streets of Amsterdam for the night.

Home Again, Home Again

I made it back from London in one piece and I am back at work today. The whole trip seems surreal because it all happened so quickly. From the moment I decided to go to the moment I got off the plane in SF was less than a month. I had a great time and can't wait to go back again, and again, and again.

Amsterdam, Getting Settled In

The flight this morning was rather quick. I think that we were in the air for about an hour. Most of the time was spent on the ground queuing as only the British can. I think that they said that the flight was closing about 45 minutes to departure time. I decided to run to the gate to find out that no one had boarded yet.

I got a chance on the plane to read my Amsterdam tour guide which really came in handy. Thanks Liz. I walked around Amsterdam for a while and ended up getting a place at a Christian youth hostel for about 18 Euros each night. It's in a good neighborhood and I now know how to use public transit here so even though it's like a 20 minute walk from central, it works. I hope the dorm style accomodations aren't too bad. It will be a lot different than staying at my posh London hotel.

Anne Frank House:
My first event of the day. It was pretty thought provoking though a bit sparse on information. It was impressive to see where she spent a few years as a child confined to such a small abode.

Sex museum:
My second event. All I can say is that this was rather stupid. Oh well.

I have to figure out what to do tonight.....

Debate Settled

Today we visited the Natural History Museum (Erik for the second time), where we settled a debate that originally came up on our trip to Peru. What kind of creature are ticks? Are they insects? Arachnids? Some other unique class of bug (or arthropods as we learned creepy crawlies with exoskeletons are called)? As it turns out, a tick is in fact an arachnid because it has two body segments (head and abdomen), 4 pairs of legs, and lacks wings and antennae. In fact, within the arachnid family, ticks are most closely related to mites, as opposed to spiders or scorpions. Now we just need to know who is related to fleas and lice.

Victoria and Albert and Jack the Ripper Tour

Today, we spent some time at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a huge museum with lots of modern art, Renaissance art, glassware, iron works, fashion exhibits and a lot of other things. It's definitely worth a look if you are ever in London. It took us about 2 hours before we were exhausted with the place and went to this great little Thai food restaurant where the yellow chicken curry was pretty scrumscious.

Later that evening, we did a Jack The Ripper Tour of White Chapel which was pretty fun. This is a 2 hour walking tour where the guide talks about the first serial killer of Britain and details all of the murders that were committed as we walk to the places where they happened.

Lastly, Liz showed me Mile End, where she lived for a semester, and we ate a huge kebab to end the night.

Tomorrow, I am off to Amsterdam, so I might not have as much access to the computer. Hopefully, the blog entries will keep coming though.

Portabello Road Market, Freud Museum, and Harrod’s

Portabello road is the biggest outdoor market I have ever seen, and the most crowded. We pretty much just walked down the main street and headed away from the place. Liz decided to get a nice quilted skirt, which apparently is a Portabello road specialty.

The Freud Museum sucked. I didn’t quite know that it was just his house, a few pictures, and a 40 minute video on him.

Liz dragged me to Harrod’s, which is the biggest department store I have ever seen. I conceded to going because there was a promise of great chocolate at Harrod’s, and there was great chocolate. After the chocolate, we shopped and shopped and then I was able to get away in about 2 hours.

A Night On The Town

On Friday, we went out with all of my coworkers to a really nice dinner and some good dessert. It’s too bad that we had already eaten because we expected to go to this pub with them. We hit up this club named the Roxy until about 3:00 am where they played 80s and 90s music. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Michael, Naomi, and Erin.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

I had never seen it before, and it was a great show. It was kind of depressing at the end, but I didn’t really expect a comedy. It was neat to see Christian Slater’s energetic role as McMurphy and him act without his Jack Nicholson accent. He came out after the show briefly to sign autographs, but I didn’t get that close to him because of the crowd of fans but it was cool.

Quick Update

The last couple days have been quite busy for me. I have visited several museums, done a bit of aimless wandering (all wandering is aimless, right?), and met up with a few friends from my time at Queen Mary. I think the highlight was seeing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” starring Christian Slater. There was even a scene in which he wore only a towel. I didn’t know a person could have a six-pack and a pot-belly at the same time. Go figure.

National Art Gallery and Natural History Museum

Last night, I went to the National Art Gallery because it was one of
the few times it was open late. Some people from work and I raced
over there at about 7 pm to try to see it all before it closed. I
think that we had plenty of time since we finished up in about 1.5
hours. There were famous paintings all the way back to the 1500s.
They had a great collection of Monet, Manet, Van Gough, Rembrandt, and
Picasso. I am glad I went but I think that I am done with art
galleries for London. After that, my friends and I went out to dinner
at this nice Malaysian restaurant and we spent 2 hours there, eating
and talking. Liz was out on the town with her friend Rachel and we
didn't meet up tonight until really late.

Today, I skipped out for about an hour and went to the Natural History
Museum. This place is so huge that I really didn't get to see much of
it. The dinosaur exhibit was lots of fun, and so was the meteorite
exhibit. I'll have to check this out again this weekend and try to
see some of the other wings that I completely missed, such as the
Earth and Rock Gallery.

Liz was able to procure some tickets for 3 folks from work, herself,
Rachel, and me to go to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest tonight, so we
are off to see another show. I haven't seen it before, so I am hoping
for an entertaining show.

London Eye

Tonight was pretty fun. After a flurry of trying to get the night's plans organized with the people at work, and having them all bail at the last minute, we decided to go to the London Eye. This is a gigantic ferris wheel and takes you on a 25 minute ride up and around. You can see the whole city from the top. It was a bit cloudy and rainy, but I think that we got a pretty good view.

Platform 9 and 3/4

The last time I was in London, I took some time to wander about King’s Cross Station looking for platform nine and three quarters. Unfortunately, there was no barrier to be found between platforms nine and ten, only train tracks. It looked like this:


Happily, I found that the barrier between platforms four and five look remarkably like the description of the entrance to the magical platform from the Harry Potter series. I took a picture of myself running through it and was satisfied know that platform nine and three quarters is actually platform four and a half.

Today, I visited the station on my way to the British Library and found someone had made an attempt to correct the number confusion, and placed a sign so that curious muggles would be able to find what they sought. Apparently, the real entrance to platform nine and three quarters looks like this:


Yet something is still not right. The sign and partially disappeared trolley in the photograph are in between platforms eight and nine. Is it possible that Wizard children are to busy studying Arithmancy and Transfiguration to learn basic arithmetic and counting?

We Will Rock You Rocked

I had no idea what to expect from this show except a bunch of Queen
music, and I knew a couple Queen songs that I liked, but certainly not
that many. The show was awesome though. At first, it took a little
while to get used to everyone having an English accent and Liz found
herself explaining some of the local jokes to me, but after that
settling in period, it was great. The story was decent, at least
until the end, the dancing was very futuristic, and the lead performer
had a great singing voice. The whole thing was very well done.

One interesting thing is that they had a scene at "Heartbreak Hotel"
which took place in none other than the tube station that was right
outside the theatre house. I suppose that if they do this show in New
York, or in most places in America, that they would use the New York
subway station as the scene. But I wonder if they use the Bart
station for an SF performance or the T station for a Boston
performance.

There are no pictures to display because I didn't take any last night.
The show kept me up late, and somehow, I managed to find a defect in
the alarm clock that Liz's family gave me for Christmas. The silly
thing does not turn itself to "alarm on" mode at night when you forget
to do so. I woke up really late today and even missed an interview,
but luckily, things worked out since Danielle had my back and I was
able to trade interview slots with her. I have to double check that
alarm.

Interviews

Well, there are a lot of interviews, but I am happy to say that they
are completely manageable. I even have the chance to write this blog
from work.

Tonight, we are off to see We Will Rock You at the West End. I hope
to meet up with the group later at some pub.

Sunday in London

I am writing this a day late, but hopefully, you will survive.

We did a bunch of stuff on Sunday. We got up early to have breakfast
with the group at the hotel. It was a full English breakfast which
looked about the same as what you would get in the US. Then we were
off to Greenwich on the train. Our first stop was the Cutty Sark, an
old tea shipping vessel. We went aboard, learned the history, and
acted like pirates. It was a lot of fun.

The next big event after lunch was going to the Greenwich observatory
which was the center of time itself and the Prime Meridian. We got a
nice picture there and walked through the museum where we learned
about some of the first time pieces used for navigation and how to
calculate longitude and latitude.

Problem Solved

I didn’t need to find any points of interest near the Monument/Bank tube station, I just needed to transfer tube lines there, which I have already done three times without making any special effort to go that route. Unfortunately, the Bob Marley guy no longer plays in that station. I was disappointed that he was not there, but quite relived that I could stop obsessing about it.

Tower Bridge and Tate Museum

So, this is day two in London for me. Liz arrived at the hotel this morning earlier than expected, and her plane was a little later than expected, so go figure. After settling in, we started our long day of site seeing and hitting some of the major museums of London.

The first stop was Westminster Abbey, where we saw the tombs of Elizabeth I, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin. We also saw loads and loads of people and wandered around the church for about an hour. After that, we quickly went to the tube and tried to find Brick Lane for lunch. After trying to find this small brick building lined street for a bit, we finally managed to discover it. One of the must do’s here according to Liz is curry on Brick Lane, so we ate at this Indian buffet where the food was much like it is in America, but the chicken curry had chicken drumsticks with the bones still in the chicken.

Next stop was the Tower and Tower Bridge where we got an hour long tour with one of the Beafeaters. Among other things, we got to see the crown jewels and learn a bit about the history of the kingdom. I have attached a picture of the view of Tower bridge for your enjoyment.



Lastly was the Tate modern art museum. While being quite exhausted, we managed to make it through the museum and see all the strange modern art of our century… some arguably pointless pieces and some that you could definitely gander at for a few minutes. It was like trying to find shapes in the clouds. Still, it was quite fun.

We ended the day with a nice pizza dinner at the restaurant right across the street from Victoria tube station.

First Day Down

Well, Virgin Atlantic had the most cramped seats that I have ever imagined. I could catch a wink of sleep on the 10 hour plane ride. Luckily, they had movies on demand and I watched Flightplan (of course), the Constant Gardener, Chicken Little, and a couple of Scrubs episodes. It was a seriously long flight and they also made us sit on the runway for 20 minutes after landing.

After I finally got settled in, I went exploring. I ended up meeting Ashwin, a buddy from Google who was on the same flight as I was and we did lunch. The food was pretty good and kept me happy.

The event of the day was seeing the British Museum, which is absolutely huge. It took me a couple hours to race through there, and I was certainly not reading all of the exhibits. I did get to see the Rosetta Stone and the mummy of Cleopatra which was rather exciting.




I think that I am heading out again to walk around at night, but I am heading to bed early tonight so that I can catch up on much needed sleep.

The Tube

As I prepare for the trip I find myself obsessing about the strangest things. For example, is the guy who always played Bob Marley in the connection between the Bank and Monument tube stations still there? That was always my favorite tube station because of his jammin'. I have been scouring a map of central London trying to figuring out some good tourist attractions near the station so that I can see if the Bob Marley guy is still there.

I asked Erik if this was weird. He asked me, "do you try to think of things to do near the Union City BART station?"

One more day

Today is the day before I head off for my 10+ hour plane trip. I have
unwittingly given myself a sleep debt all week in anticipation and so
that I can konk out on the plane so that I can reset my internal clock
and overcome the jet lag. I don't know if it was such a good idea. I
still have to figure out how to get to the airport and still have to
pack. Hopefully, that won't take too long.

Off to London

Well, the trip is planned the tickets are purchased and I have still to pack. I can't wait.