On Friday, July 8th we arrived in London at Gatwick Airport--sleepless and jet-lagged. Then we stumbled through the lines at the airport, hoping that neither the Passport Control officers nor the officers in Customs would find us to be "of interest" and thus send us directly to the Tower of London. After about a two hour bus ride from the airport, we arrived at the Hampstead campus of King's College London--our home for the next four weeks.
Kidderpore Avenue, with the campus on the left. On the other side of the street are apartments (flats) that go for over a million pounds each.
Our very own letterbox where I entrust my postcards to the Royal Mail.
The view from my window of Rosalind Franklin Hall into the quadrangle.
On Saturday, after everyone was beginning to resemble semi-conscious human beings, the whole tribe packed onto to four coaches for a tour around London. (Coaches are the big things like Greyhound busses; busses are big red things that run on schedules.) Some of these pictures are from a coach window--thus not the best. Here's the view across the lake in St. James Park toward the London Eye on the banks of the Thames. Each car on it holds 28 people who get a grand view of the city.
View back toward the city with lots of old buildings in sight.
The view up the Mall toward Buckingham Palace at the end. It's the street for all the big processions--most recently "The Wedding."
Remains of a church that was bombed out in WW2. Now it's a memorial.
The big red busses. Without them and the Underground (subway) system, nobody would be able to move in London. Best transport system in the world. You can get anywhere in London, accompanied by vast numbers of your fellow travellers.
St. Paul's Cathedral, built after the Great Fire in 1666 burned most of the city which was medieval and made out of wood.
Always good to have students who will take your picture.
And as a last resort, you can always take your own picture with St. Paul's in the background.
Tower Bridge, not to be confused with London Bridge. The ship on the right is permanent exhibition; the other was just visiting. I understand that you can visit the towers which might be cool. It was built in the 1800s.
The Houses of Parliament. The older, smaller ones burned in the 1800s, and these got built.
Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives. Sometimes the crowds are reporters or protestors, not just tourists.
On Sunday I made a dry run of my first field trip to Warwick Castle, about a two hour train ride from London--unless you go on a weekend as I had to when they close part of the route for "engineering works" (maintenance). Then you go by train, by bus, and then by train again. It takes forever, but it does give you the opportunity to open up conversations with fellow travellers about the damnable ways of public transport in Britain. Anyway, I got to Warwick, walked down one street, and stumbled on a garden party populated by lots of elderly former military types wearing their medals and others wearing ceremonial robes. The closest thing I hadon my person to a medal was the foil on my roll of mints, so I decided not to try to mingle.
Since this was only to check the routes for the field trip, I didn't go into the castle, but I did find a wonderful Victorian garden along the river at the base of the castle. It gave me some great views of Warwick that I had never seen as well as a garden to die for. Sigh.
Sigh again.
This plant is a Gunnera--biggest leaves you can imagine--3 or 4 feet across. Guy said it was 40 years old.
The view from the garden to the river Avon at the foot of the Castle. The two overgrown pilings in the river in the left top of the picture are from the medieval bridge that one of the Earls of Warwick had built.
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