Exploring London: National Gallery, St Paul's cathedral and The City

I like to share my impressions of our last excursion as tourists in London, which I think we will never ceased to be. I love the sense of exploring this enormous city; every corner of it seems to tell a story. We started our day in one of my favourite’s spots in the city so far: Trafalgar square. It is a large square with a big monument in the centre, surrounded by a large building that holds the National Gallery and some other buildings including the Canadian Embassy. From the square you can see down one of the streets the houses of parliament and the Big Ben. Every time I’ve been here there are lots of people, tourists, activists, scouts, musicians, bands, and cyclists. To me this place represents what London is, a vibrant spot where lots of people from all over the world converge, where there is always something happening and you could never be bored. To my delight, one of the bands was playing one of Shakira’s songs, only instrumental and I saw people grooving on the streets. We had our picnic lunch on the grass in front of the gallery where there were people sunbathing, drinking wine and vodka and enjoying the nice weather, for a change.

Trafalgar Square

The National Gallery has a large collection of some of the most acclaimed paintings in the world presented in the walls of a beautifully decorated building. I will just mention my personal favourites: A Wheatfield with Cypresses by Van Gogh, The virgin in Prayer de Sassoferrato and The Fighting Temeraire de Joseph Turner, named the greatest picture from England.

The virgin in Prayer, by Sassoferrato.

We also visited St Paul’s Cathedral, one of the buildings that you can always recognize in the London skyline. Normally they charge you to visit the cathedral except on Sundays which is the day of worship. We lit a candle and made a prayer for our families.

St Paul's Cathedral, London

We walked to the financial centre of London, known as “The City”, about a square mile with the London stock exchange and the offices of the most important financial institutions in the world. There is a great selection of buildings of interest, among them the 30th Street St. Mary, completed in 2004 and designed by Foster, one of the greatest architects of our time. The building is one of the first fully ecological buildings and in my opinion, somehow this modern building fits well among so many historic old buildings in the city, although the general opinion seems to be that it is not harmonious with its neighbours.

30th Street St. Mary

Another building which I thought is neat is the 122 Leadenhall Street, which is being demolished (see picture) in its place there will be a building which will be ready by 2011. It is very impressive to see so clearly how the core of the building supports the rest. The building is being demolished trying to minimize the impact on the surroundings.

Demolition in progress at 122 Leadenhall Street

Our week in France

Sorry its been a while since the last post. Things have been busy around here. We hadn't even finshed unpacking the boxes in our new place and it was time to head off on vacation. Being over here, we decided to take advantage of the fact that 1) we have a car and 2) France is just across that little channel south of here...so we caught a boat across and spent the week driving around France (and well...a bit of Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium as well.....) All said and done, 3000 kms in 8 days....a bit crazy, but we did get to see a lot.

We started out early Sunday morning and drove down to Dover where we caught a ferry across to Dunkerque. Not wanting to be late, I got us to Dover about 2 hours early, which while disappointing to Alex who would have preferred a couple extra hours of sleep, let us walk along some trails on top of the famous white cliffs....

Two hours after boarding the ferry, we were in France. Now I got to get used to driving back on the 'correct' side of the road, but now on the wrong side of the car. We quickly got lost and ended up in Calais, almost out of gas....a very good start. Eventually that afternoon we made it down to Paris, where we set up shop in a campground in a neighbourhood called Maisons Lafitte, which is in the north-west part of the city. The campground was very, very, very cramped, but on the bright side, was only a 15 minute walk to the train station, from where it was 25 minutes into central Paris. We spent two days there and did as many of the tourist things we could do. I think that Alex may provide some more detail in her post.

On Wednesday we left Paris and drove down to Lyon where we found a campsite just outside of town. What a beautiful city Lyon seems to be (at least what we saw of the historic centre). I intended for it to be an unavoidable stop-over spot on the way down to the mediterranean, and was really blown away by the city. Who knows what it is really like, but in our evening there it really impressed.

The next morning was on our way through Provence to a place just between Nice and Monacco, on the Cote Azur. Of course, I got lost, and we spend far too much time driving the coastal highway (much to Alex's disappointment...lots and lots of curves and ups and downs......) Eventually, perched high, high, high above the water was our campground. What an amazing spectacle. I think that the views over St. Jean Cap Ferrat couldn't be bested by any other campsite in the world. We spent the afternoon on the beach.....no sand on the riviera apparently...just smoothed stones....very odd....and the water was cold, cold, cold....reminded me of Lake Winnipeg in June. Then we spent an hour or so in Monacco (did our groceries there!) and then the early evening in Nice. We settled down for the night with a good curry, some wine, and the views over the sea.

The next day was on to Geneva. I got us off to a bad start by almost running out of gas. We were driving around helplessly with about a litre in the tank and me asking in my long forgotten French, " Ou est-ce que on peut acheter du gasoline"...After about 5 failed attempts at that (and more of that precious litre of gas we did have used up driving in circles...) someone was kind enough to point out that gas or petrol (depending on your English) is actually called Essence in French. That does ring a bell somewhere deep in the cobwebs...After that correction, we were pointed in the right direction and on our way with a full tank. We crossed over to Italy, and rode about on the coastal highway for a bit before turning up towards the mountains. We skirted past Turin and had lunch in a nice little town at the foot of the mountains called Aosta. Fittingly, ALex has Ravioli and I had Gnocchi.

Then further into the Alps...(wow...amazing scenary) and then under Mont Blanc via an 11 km tunnel.

Into France past Chomonix and then over the border in Switzerland. I got us lost again looking for the campground (not sure why Alex lets me take care of directions....) but finally, mercifully before the sun set, we found our place on the shore of lake Geneva, just east of the town. We spent the night in Geneva, which is really a very charming spot. We had fondue for dinner, which seemed appropriate.

The next morning, and early start had us drive up through Bern, where we stopped for a quick look around....this is another place that I would like to spend some more time in, as the historic centre is really very beautiful.

We made it up and out of Switzerland, through a bit of France and into Luxembourg, where we looked around for a couple of hours, and had a bite to eat. Then on to Brussels, which, I suppose like Lyon, I had no expectations of. And again, we found it to be a really beautiful looking place. We strolled around a bit near the Royal Palace, etc... Alex had a Belgian Waffle...and then we had to get to our campsite. We got to a place near Dunkerque called Brays Dunes (very French sounding, non?) just before sunset and set things up in the sand. An odd little resport / campground we stayed at, but an amazing long sandy beach, and one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

The next morning, we had time to do some grocery (read..wine) shopping before catching the boat back to Dover. By pure coincidence, the timing of this worked out so that we could see the Tour de France as Stage 1 passed through the south of England. While we spent most of the afternoon out there getting burned (a rare sunny day in England) the race itself was over in an instant. The riders were basically all together, and while we were on a hill, it meant nothing to them, and the whole lot of 'em whizzed by in about 20 seconds. I'd no idea that it would be all over so quickly.

Anyway, that's the quick lowdown on the trip. Sorry for the lack of interesting details. It had been too long since I posted, so I thought I'd better get something down soon.
I hope everyone is well.
Scott.

Camping, food and churches in France

Camping in Paris, Lyon, Nice, Geneva and Brais-Dunes

During our trip we stayed at 5 different campgrounds, we did not get to enjoy the camp sites as much or socialize, as we just had time to set up the tent, cook something quick and sleep. We became experts in setting up the tent and beds in less than 15 minutes and fortunately enough it only rained in Paris. Camping has proven to be a great way to enjoy all the sites without spending a lot of money in accommodation, at the end, we spend very few hours at the campsites, since there is so much to see and limited time.

Camping International in Paris

In Paris we stayed at the Camping International campground, on the shore of the Seine River on the north west of the city and only a 15 minute walk to the metro station and from there 30 minutes to the main attractions. Then in Lyon, we stayed at Camping International in the outskirts of the city, just off the main highway it about a 15 minute drive into the city.

View from campsite in Eze

My favourite one was the Indigo camping in Eze, in the outskirts of Nice on the Cost D’Azur: This campsite has the most amazing view. Right on the cost but about 800 meters above see level. In Geneva, we camped on the south shore of the Geneva lake at a campsite with a very convenient bus service to the town centre, about 20 minute ride.

The last night camp site was an unexpected surprise, on the North of France near Dunkerkerque in a small town called Brais-Dunes. We camped on sand and about a 5 minute walk to the beach. The sea did not have the blue colour, it reminded me of the Pacific Ocean but the sand was soft and the water felt warmer than the one in the Mediterranean.

Acampando

Acampamos en 5 campamentos diferentes aunque no tuvimos mucho tiempo de disfrutar sus servicios o socializar, llegando tarde y saliendo temprano. Acampar en Europa me parecio bien facil y una manera bien practica de quedarse en diferentes ciudades sin gastar mucho y con el carro.
En Paris nos quedamos en Camping International, muy bien ubicado en un barrio del noroeste de Paris, al lado del rio Sena desde ahi era 15 minutos caminando a la estacion del metro y en el metro 30 minutos a el centro de la ciudad.
En Lyon nos quedamos en un campamento como a 10 km de la ciudad. El mas lindo de todos fue el del mediterraneo, en Eze, en una cornisa de la montana y al frente de la costa con una vista espectacular, yo diria que mejor que la de cualquier hotel!!!

En Ginebra en un sitio muy lindo sobre el lago, desde donde podiamos tomar un bus directo a el centro y estabamos alli en 20 minutos y la ultima noche en el norte de Francia nos quedamos en un sitio con una playa lindisima y un atardecer inolvidabe.

Atardecer en Bray-Dunes, Norte de Francia

Food

While in France we mainly ate baguettes, wine and cheese. The French seem to really like their baguettes; every morning, either in the towns or campgrounds you see people walking back from the store with their fresh baguettes for breakfast. There was a great variety of cheeses in every little store, and the wine was very cheap.
I certainly enjoyed the crepe au chocolate from street vendors in Paris, we agreed that Nutella was underestimated in Canada and it should really be included in more recipes.

In Italy, we stopped in a very nice town called Aosta with great views of the Alps and Mont Blanc for lunch, and had good Italian food (although there it was just called lunch), pumpkin filled orange ravioli!

In Switzerland, we found the perfect place for cheese fondue in Geneva, in the heart of the city. It was a real threat for me (Better than La Cuisine Suisse in Bogota ).

We did not really spend that much time in this Brussels, but it was long enough to found a stand of Belgium waffles and try them out, they serve them very hot and coated with some type of syrup. Very tasty!

Comida

La base de nuestra alimentacion en Francia fue pan Frances (Baguettes), quesos y vinos. A los Franceses les encanta sus panes y lo compran fresco cada manana. Incluso en pequenas tiendas se encuentra una gran variedad de quesos y vinos, y se encuentran vinos muy baratos. Tambien probalmos la crepe de chocolate Nutella en las calles de Paris y los croissants.
En italia estuvimos en una ciudad pequena llamada Aosta, con unas vistas espectaculares de los Alpes y el Mont Blanc, alli comimos unos raviolis anaranjados rellenos de ahuyama, una delicia.
En suiza comimos Fondue de queso, estaba espectacular y muy autentico (aun mejor que el de La Cuisine Suisse en Bogota). En bruselas probamos los wafles belgas, servidos calientes.

Churches

We found a lot of spectacular churches along our way. We have this tradition in Colombia (maybe is everywhere) that when you visit a church for the first time you get to make 3 wishes. So I can say that our families were very lucky last week for all the wishes and prayers we made for them over the course of the trip.

Inside Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris: Notre Dame is as I had I had imagined it or seen in so many movies I guess. The gargoyles seemed smaller, but they are very high up. There were to many tourist making it look more like a museum than a church. I was very impressed by the gothic arquitecture and the sculptures on the outside walls. We did not wait in line to get into the towers, it was enough with what we saw inside!

Sacre Coeur, Paris

Sacre Cour is a beautiful church on top of a hill in the Montmartre area of Paris which can be seen from the distance and from there you get a great view of the city, it is a bit of a climb but the neighbourhood is very cute, with lots of narrow and steep roads.

Basilique Notre-Dame, Lyon

Basilique Notre-Dame, Lyon: Even though we climbed the mountain we did not make it inside this beautiful basilique as it was closed. A great building with gorgeous gardens around and a fantastic view of the city, totally worth the effort.

Iglesias

Tuvimos la oportunidad de visitar varias iglesias. Seguimos la tradicion de los 3 deseos por cada iglesia que visitas por primera vez, asi que nuestras familias recibieron muchas oraciones durante esta semana.

Notre Dame, Paris

La cathedral de Notre Dame es como la habia imaginado. Las gorgolas se ven mas pequenas de lo que las pensaba, pero la verdad es que estan muy muy altas. Habian muchos turistas en la iglesia, que hacian que pareciera mas como un museo. Me impresionaron la arquitectura gotica del interior de la iglesia, las esculturas en la fachada principal, la estatua de Juana de Arco, las columnas del exterior de la iglesia y los vitrales.

Sagrado Corazon en Montmartre (Paris)
Una preciosa iglesia blanca en al cima de una montana. Esta ubicada en el barrio Montmartre nombre y desde la iglesia se pueden apreciar vistas maravillosas de la ciudad. Esta en el mismo barrio que el Moulin Rouge y otras varias tiendas de dudosa reputacion.

Basilica de Notre Dame, Lyon

Aunque despues de subir la montana encontramos la iglesia cerrada, esta iglesia me parecio divina. El esfuerzo de la subida estuvo bien recompenzado con la vista.

We finally moved

Finally the process of finding and moving into a home in London has ended, it took us officially 8 weeks to achieve this but finally is all done. Letting a property here is significantly different than in Canada or in Colombia. The market conditions were not ideal, everybody wants to sell and fewer properties are available to rent. Once finally we decided on a house, the negotiation process took a long time. There is a "listing price" and you make an "offer" with different conditions, and the landlord can decide to take your offer, make a counter offer or amend the conditions. Once a "number" is agreed then the real fun starts to try to agree on a letting contract, not sure if everybody goes through the same but this was true for us, a very lengthy process. At the end the contract was signed on the moving day.

The house was built in 1936, it was built in the Elizabethan style, timber framed, black and white, vertical timbers supported by diagonal timbers. Very English in my opinion. It backs onto a golf course and has a beautiful garden on the back. I really hope that we will have some guests during our stay in this house. My favorite thing about the house is the garden (see picture).

It will take us a while to get Internet access up and running in the house, so for now I have to keep it short. But, soon we will be updating the site with some more pictures.

En Español: Jardín con casa

Finalmente ya encontramos y alquilamos una casa en Londres, nos tomo oficialmente 8 semanas, fue difícil porque todo el mundo quiere vender y hay pocas propiedades en el mercado para rentar; y cuando te decides por una casa, entonces comienza el proceso de negociación, donde puedes hacer una “oferta” de cuanto quieres pagar mensualmente por el alquiler y cada parte pone condiciones, a través de dos agentes. Es complicado y demorado. Finalmente firmamos el contrato el mismo día que nos la entregaron.

La casa fue construida en 1936 y el estilo de la construcción que parece común de la época se llama Elizabethan, con columnas verticales y diagonales de madera, fachada blanca y negra. La parte que mas me gusta es el jardín (Foto) y da contra un campo de golf en la parte de atrás. Esperamos que nos visiten mientras estamos aquí.

Aun no tenemos conexión a Internet en la casa, así que no puedo escribir mucho pero una vez estemos conectados pondremos mas fotos. Un abrazo.

Faces of Istanbul

Here is a photographic look of some of the sculptures from the Istanbul Archeology Museum. Sadly, one of the main sculpture halls was closed for renovations.

Nonethless it gives you an idea of the quality of the collection they have at this place.

Turkish Culture

There are a number of reasons for me to be excited about this trip. First of all, because travelling through Europe was one of the main bonuses of living in England and this trip could be the start of that and second because it was my first time in a country where the first language is neither English or Spanish, the main religion is not Christian and the role of Woman is so notoriously different, so in a world, a truly cultural experience.

Estaba emocionada por este viaje por muchas razones. La primera, viajar por Europa era uno de las ventajas de vivir en Inglaterra y este viaje seria el comienzo de eso. La segunda es porque este viaje seria mi primera experiencia en un país cuya lengua no es Español o Ingles, su religión no es Cristiana y el rol de la mujer es tan diferente, entonces es una verdadera experiencia cultural.

Turkish W.C.

This was one of the challenges for me in particular. The first public bathroom was on the side of a Mosque and it was simply "men only". There are very few women on the street and on the Mosque, even inside the Mosque they have a very small separate area enclosed with dividers where they can not be seen. About 90% of the shops attendants that we saw were men. I guess there is not as big of a demand for women's public bathrooms.

The second bathroom experience was a public bathroom on an underpass, close to a main tram station. After paying the fee, I realized that for my 75 cents I was getting a bucket of water and a pink latrine (See picture below). I can not help to wonder how this women do it, with the long skirts, head scarfs and multiple layers of clothing, how do they manage to use a latrine? . I also found latrines on the bathrooms of the museum and any other outside public bathroom.

But then, contrasting my public bathroom experiences, I found a couple of fancy bathrooms. In the lobby of our hotel, the airport and a fancier restaurant there were toilets with electronic sensors for flushing and odour absorbers with sensors.

Los baños públicos

Fue uno de las dificultades que encontré para mi en este país. El primer baño publico simplemente era solo para hombres. Hay muy pocas mujeres en la calle, trabajando en las tiendas y en las mezquitas. Todo es atendido por hombres, incluso en las mezquitas tienen un área separada para las mujeres que es muy pequeña y esta bien encerrada. Así que no hay muchas mujeres en la calle y así, muy poca demanda para baños públicos. Luego encontré un vano publico para mujeres, pero era una letrina, después de pagar los 75 centavos que costaba la entrada, me dieron un baldecito con agua y ya esta. Yo me pregunto como hacen estas mujeres con las faldas largas, las túnicas en la cabeza y tantas capas de ropa para usar esos baños?
Pero en contraste, también encontré unos baños bastante modernos con censores y también censores-extractores de olor, en la recepción del hotel y el aeropuerto.

Temples: The Aya Sofya

The Aya Sofya truly impressed me, this enourmous temple which has been a place of worship for both Christians and Muslims for almost a millenium and a half (More specifically opened in year 537). The diameter of the dome is about 30 meters and its height is 55 meters (to give you an idea, the statue of liberty without its base would stand nicely under the central dome). Its architecture and construction has fascinated humanity for decades. To me this building stands as a symbol of faith and respect and that is what I felt when I got inside it.

Templos: El Aya Sofya
Este templo verdaderamente me impresiono, una construcción monumental que ha sido lugar de oraciones de Cristianos y Musulmanes por casi un milenio y medio (Fue abierto al publico en el año 537 d. C.). El diámetro de la cúpula es de 30 metros y la altura es de 55 metros (la estatua de la libertad sin base cabria dentro del edificio). Su arquitectura y construcción a fascinado a la humanidad por décadas. Para mi, este edificio es un símbolo de fe y respecto y eso es lo que sentí cuando entre a el.

Fauna

We were quite lucky to see dolphins fighting the busy ship traffic on the Bosphorus and the seaguls lying on and flying around them, they were jumping outside the water and although they were far from our ferry we were able to enjoy the show.

There were some others, not so glamorous, animals around the streets of Istanbul. Street cats, every where and on every pile of garbage. It was kind of spooky to be around so many hungry-looking cats, specially at night in the dark streets (Well, spooky for me - and cute for Scott).

Fauna
Tuvimos suerte de ver delfines en el Bosphorus, aunque había mucho trafico de barcos y botes. Los delfines estaban relativamente lejos de nosotros, estaban saltando afuera del agua y las gaviotas revoloteaban alrededor de ellos y se posaban en ellos también. Un buen espectáculo nos dieron.
Habían otros animales, no tan glamorosos en las calles de Estmabul. Gatos callejeros, miles, en casa esquina, husmeando en la basura. A mi me parece un poco aterrador estar rodeado de tantos gatos, que parecían hambrientos, en esas calles oscuras (Bueno, aterrador para mi pero a Scott le parecían como lindos).


Food

We enjoyed a couple of versions of the traditional Doner Kebab, lamb or chicken, it was very good, they eat it inside bread and with some salad - as a fast food snack. The more elaborated delicacies that we enjoyed include Anatolian chicken casserole, Sea bream and fish stew. Lots of fruits available including cherries, "ericks" (a mini green plum) and orange juice parlors very inexpensive. Pastries filled with cheese or chicken for breakfast, boiled corn-on-the-cob stacks everywhere (without butter!) and for desserts, we tried different varieties of the "Turkist delight", made into cubes from starch and sugar and in different flavors, lots with pistachios and also the Baklava, a sweet pastry typical of the middle east. Around the Bosphorus, there were hundreds of fishermen catching tiny fish and then we saw many barbq stands grilling them and putting into bread and selling them as a snack - very smelly - did not get to try that.

Comida
Probamos el tradicional doner kebab (Foto abajo), de cordero o pollo, se lo comen con pan y un poco de ensalada, como un sándwich. También degustamos otros platos mas elaborados como cacerolas de pollo de Anatolia, pescado Dorado y cazuela de pescado. Había una gran variedad de frutas, cerezas, “ericks” que eran como ciruelas pequeñas y verdes, jugo de naranja natural. También probamos los pasteles de hojaldre rellenos de queso (al desayuno). Tienen puestos en la calle donde venden mazorca hervida, simplemente hervida, ni siquiera le ponen mantequilla. De postres, probamos el famoso “Delicias Turcas”, que son unos cubos de azúcar con diferentes sabores, como pistacho y también probamos el Baklava que es un postre del medio oriente hecho de hojaldre y mieles, con diferentes rellenos. Alrededor del Bosphorus, habían muchos hombres pescando unos pescaditos diminutos, que luego otros se encargan de ponerlos en una parrilla y venderlos dentro de un pan: eso olía mucho a pescado y no parecía nada provocativo, así que no lo probamos.

Alex.