London walks

here's a little something for everyone to mull over just in case you weren't already aware:  London is a big place.

now i don't mean it's a major city of the world, a huge population, or even a particularly impressive skyline, i assume everyone of even the slightest worldly experience is aware of that, what i mean is that the people who built this place brick by brick weren't acustomed, or perhaps even fluent, in the concept of limitations.  the only exception seems to be in their reverence for the Lord's blue sky.   Ok, ok, they have their few skyscrapers in the financial district, but it's on a par with mid-sized cities like Dallas.  For the most part, the city tops off around 5 stories, but those 5 stories strech out for miles and uninterupted miles of truly metropolitan expanse. 

This is not like NYC's fetish for height, or Tokyo's efficiency quotia, this is a very english acceptance of non-suburban sprawl.  it's urban sprawl, in the most true and accurate sense.  go as far as  you like, and it will still have tube stations, pubs,  coffeeshops, and abundant foot traffic.

ok, this is only mildly interesting, if that, but it comes into play as i spent my weekend seeing the sights of london, or to put it another way,  walking.

Don't get me wrong, London has a truly tremendous subway station.  It's clean, fast, and on-time, if not necessarily cheap.  And even with abundant tube stations around, it's still quite easy to walk ridiculous distances in the pursuit of nearby sights.

Take saturday.  my brother Duff (real name there folks) and his wife Larissa decided we should go see the sights.  I'd already spent 2 days at museums, so we elected to hit the non-museum sights.

we started walking around their neighborhood and into neighboring Chelsea.  it was lots of chic shops and questionably chic shoppers. As my brother points out, they like to spend money over here, and with no discount stores and a flaire for designer shops, it's not hard to achieve.  It's interesting because it throws American consumerism into sharp relief.  The british love spending large chunks of money on things they probably do need, but could certainly get cheaper.  Americans love saving as much per item as possible, but are equally gleefull to buy piles of junk they don't need at great expense, so long as they feel they're getting a good deal item-by-item.

So that's Chelsea.  From there it was off to WEstminster  Abbey and Parliament.  Impressive buildngs and thick history.  The meager peace protest out front (it's been steadily waning for the past 5 years) was a nice touch.

next it was to Trafalgar (for the toilets), then a refuel at Starbucks and we headed across the Thames to the Tate modern for a view of the weekend's BMX bike rally festivities.  Fun stuff.  We walked the millenium bridge to St. Paul's cathedral, then into the absolutely deserted financial district to get a closer look at the few big buildings.

we wound up at the Tower of London and accompanying tower bridge (pictured), which proved to be a good turnaround point except for one thing:  the tube was closed from there almost back to parliament.

we tried to catch a bus, or more accurately, Duff andLarissa adeptly weaved their way onto a packed double-decker, and I got squeezed off.

so off i went to get ahead of them by foot in the traffic jam.  that plan didn't work very well either, and the couple was kind enough to disembark at the next stop and join me for a long walk back along the Thames.  Once we made it home, it was time for a pub stop and some grub, and after that day, even teh blood pudding tasted decent.

so there's the narrative, my analysis of English food and their bizarre relationship with royalty (we visited Windsor Castle on Sunday) will have to wait for another day.

cheers,

Weber (on the Lamb)