And then there is the Buckingham palace, Picadilly circus and Trafalgar square - all of which I saw in passing the first day, when Aleksei and Kati met me at Victoria and took me to dinner in Soho and then to the river to catch a ferry to Greenwich, where they lived.
The apartment they lived in was very beautiful. A bit too hipster for my taste... and a bit too sterile, with a debilitating "everything has a right place" feeling. Thankfully, that faded after a few "How do you know a hippie is squatting your apartment?" jokes, when (I guess) they realized how much it was bothering me. By the end of my stay, it felt pretty nice and cozy.
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| From 2011 London |
First evening was spent drinking Gin and playing the Settlers of Catan. Since Aleksei had work next day, we went to sleep pretty early. I was shown to my couch, which was a bit too short and soft for me but neither stopped me from getting a good nights sleep.
A word or two about my hosts would also be appropriate, I suppose. Aleksei I know from university, where he was about a year behind me, but also specialized in math and later cryptography. He is working as a security analyst in a large company where their division is mainly concerned about penetration testing of all kinds. Kati, his girlfriend, is a philosophy major going on to study linguistics for her masters degree. Both are extremely bright and good at what they do.
Next day, after our morning coffee, Kati took me out to the museums. First up was the British Museum - which really is HUGE, having everything from stone age to ancient egypt to medieval muslim world all the way to enlightenment clocks. Besides the longer break at medieval europe (where I put my re-enactor knowledge to good use), we mostly just walked through most of the halls, not really concentrating on anything in particular. The usual problem with places where there is way too much to see.
We then visited a few more exhibitions - about Dirt, and then Hygene, followed by quite an interesting show about Science Fiction that the central library was hosting. Exhibit was small enough so that we could read through all of the descriptions, and most of them were well worth the read - I wrote down quite a few book names for my future reading.
A word or two about my hosts would also be appropriate, I suppose. Aleksei I know from university, where he was about a year behind me, but also specialized in math and later cryptography. He is working as a security analyst in a large company where their division is mainly concerned about penetration testing of all kinds. Kati, his girlfriend, is a philosophy major going on to study linguistics for her masters degree. Both are extremely bright and good at what they do.
Next day, after our morning coffee, Kati took me out to the museums. First up was the British Museum - which really is HUGE, having everything from stone age to ancient egypt to medieval muslim world all the way to enlightenment clocks. Besides the longer break at medieval europe (where I put my re-enactor knowledge to good use), we mostly just walked through most of the halls, not really concentrating on anything in particular. The usual problem with places where there is way too much to see.
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| From 2011 London |
We then visited a few more exhibitions - about Dirt, and then Hygene, followed by quite an interesting show about Science Fiction that the central library was hosting. Exhibit was small enough so that we could read through all of the descriptions, and most of them were well worth the read - I wrote down quite a few book names for my future reading.
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| From 2011 London |
The day ended sitting outside an English pub in Greenwich, watching the sun set over London, and then making a quick trip to the supermarket - Pims (a form of punch they wanted to introduce to me) being the main reason to go.
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| From 2011 London |
The next day was spent first walking from Greenwich to the Tower, then on to the Monument.
or, well,
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| From 2011 London |
We then went on to St. Pauls, visiting a few street markets on the way. We ended the day in used books stores near Covent Garden, where we also had gelatos and where we returned later in the evening to see standup.
On Saturday, the three of us went to Cambridge, to visit two friends of mine who were doing their PhD-s there. I got to try Punting, and the others got to have a laugh watching me balance on the back of the boat and later collapse on the lawn when we got out.
On Saturday, the three of us went to Cambridge, to visit two friends of mine who were doing their PhD-s there. I got to try Punting, and the others got to have a laugh watching me balance on the back of the boat and later collapse on the lawn when we got out.
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| From 2011 London |
We then went back to their place, on Perse Way,
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| From 2011 London |
and I got to play Duke Nukem Forever, and a game of even more mindless violence (the fact such a game exists shows just how big of a failure DNF is). The evening ended with a barbecue on their back porch, after which we got a taxi back to the station to catch the last train back to London.
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