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

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.

Driving

Yesterday I went through something called a triple roundabout in Aylesbury. For the most part, these roundabouts seem like good ideas, and they seem smoother than traffic lights. This "triple roundabout" was a bit of an exception though. It was a mix of lights and of roundabouts.

I tried to find a picture / map of this online, but couldn't. Nevertheless, I did find a two page list of the Aylesburg driving test route. Friends from North America will appreciate how confusing this looks / sounds compared to anything we might have. Here's page two of the Aylesbury practical driver's test.

I'd say that it all looks OK until you hit about Tumfurlong Lane. Not sure exactly what a Gyratory system is. I don't recall one of these being on my driver's test.

It's not just the driving on the 'wrong' side of the road and the roundabouts that are different. They've got a whole different set of roadsigns here.

Here's a couple to consider:


This one apparently means "No Stopping". [ Español: Esta señal significa "NO PARE" ]

Well, yesterday we turned on to a motorway on-ramp and there were two of these signs ominsously standing guard over the entry way.

My first reaction was that this means "do not enter" and we thought we'd entered a motorway off-ramp (rather than on-ramp).
So, stop is exactly what we did, while we tried to figure out what to do. Fortunately, another car eventually came up and passed us from behind, so we just followed him along.

Then there is the Red Circle series of signs.



I have to be honest that a red circle with nothing in it doesn't mean a thing to me. It's tough to interpret. But the other two, I might guess are "pedestrians only" and "cars only (no trucks?)"

Well, I'd be wrong. Apparently the red circle means "not permitted". So an empty red circle would mean no traffic at all. A circle with a pedestian: no pedestrians, and a circle with a car, means no vehicles except for scooters and motorcycles.

What would be wrong with putting a slash though something to mean "not permitted"?

Español: Conduciendo...

Aquí en Inglaterra hay muchas glorietas, que parecen una excelente idea hasta que encontramos una triple-glorieta en Aylsbury. Scott encontró una lista del examen de conducción que incluye muchos términos que no conocemos, así que esperamos no tener que pasar uno de esos exámenes.
También las señales de transito son diferentes, esa señal de circulo azul y cruz roja quiere decir No Pare, nosotros pensábamos que era No pase y en efecto, paramos - hasta que vimos otro carro pasar. Las otras tres señales tampoco tienen mucho sentido, aparentemente circulo rojo quiere decir prohibido, así que la que tiene el circulo en rojo y es blanca, quiere decir "No transite", la del peatón es no transiten peatones y la del carro... No transiten carros.

Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon: Our first road trip

Today we had our first road trip in England that was made possible with the assistance of our new Navman Gps navigation system (we called her "Lucy"); one less thing to worry about because I do not like navigating, looking down on maps when there is SO much to see through the windows and with the left side driving and the unknown roads we thought we deserved the treat.


The trip started in Oxford, the beautiful city where Oxford University is located, about 90 miles from London and over 800 years old. The university buildings are spread throughout the city, they all keep the same architectural style - it is hard to see where the university starts and the city ends. As visitors, we were able to access some of the university "Colleges" and see the student residences, the Churches inside this colleges, libraries and classrooms.

It was a beautiful summer day and some of the students were studying outside on the many parks and squares. The city inspired peace and reflection, almost respect.

We visited a nearby town called Woodstock, a charming little village where Blenheim Palace is located, one of England's largest houses and also the birth place of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. We had lunch at the beer garden of a pub on the side of a river. There were Swans on the river and also got to see a performance of some English dancers.




After that, we decided to go further north to Statford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. A historic place well packed with hundreds of tourists. A town with lots of very old buildings, older from what we have seen in London so far. There are a number of Shakespeare-related attractions, a number of houses related to his life and theater productions. There is a lovely canal with boats and Swans (we used to think that Swans were something really special that you would only see in a blue moon, but today we changed our views on that, since we saw more swans on the rivers and lakes than ducks and geese). We enjoyed an afternoon tea at a tea house which has been in business for over 400 years.

On the way back we stopped in Alsbury, a small town with an old medieval church and lots of narrow streets. We enjoyed the English views driving outside London, the hills, country side and specially the sheep. A truly unforgettable day!

En Español : Nuestro primer paseo en carro

Hoy tuvimos nuestro primer paseo en carro en las afueras de Londres. Empezamos en Oxford, la ciudad y la universidad, como a 90 millas de Londres. Una ciudad realmente deslumbrante, muchos edificios componen la universidad, como facultades, con las residencias de los estudiantes e iglesias. Es mucho mas linda de lo que la había imaginado, tantos jardines y espacios verdes. Almorzamos en un pueblito que se llama Woodstock, en un "pub", que es como un bar típico Ingles, este en especial tenia un "jardín de la cerveza" al lado del rió donde vimos cisnes. También fuimos a Stratford-Upon-Avon que es donde nació Shakespeare, una ciudad mas pequeña pero llena de historia y magia, canales y rió. Visitamos Alsbury, un pueblito con una gran iglesia medieval. En el camino, en lugar de vacas, vimos miles de ovejas en las colinas.