Rainy London

River Thames

During the second week of July, Elisabet participated in a course aimed at singers who want to learn more about their throat's physiology, that was offered by the Royal Academy of Music in London. For me, too, a good opportunity to visit the UK.
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Monday - Our Ryanair flight was due to leave Barcelona airport at 6:50 am, so we had to get up even earlier than the chickens. Once again we made use of the services of Aparca i Vola, a company one can park one's car at, for fares cheaper than those of the official parking lot at the airport, and which organises a shuttle service to and fro the different terminals. Though Ryanair's passenger treatment wasn't as lousy as usual (this time it didn't even remind me of a cattle transport), any efforts of getting some additional sleep on the plane were successfully crippled by the stewardesses in the most efficient fashion one can imagine. Every goddamn 5 minutes, they noisily announced some must have gimmick to exclusevly be sold in the cabin, and as a result nearly all passengers started into their vacations not only well fed and drunken, but also packed with smokeless cigarettes, supercheap phonecards, superfast traintickets, trendy perfumes, lottery tickets and other stuff - except cash.

Elephant

Instead of travelling from Stansted to London by train, this time we had booked a ride on Easybus, a service offered by Easyjet. I recommend to whoever may read this: stick to the train! I really like the feeling of adrenaline pumping through my veins, but I certainly don't want to die because of a mentally retarded busdriver. But maybe I'm discrediting the poor guy too fast and any sane person would end up like him when listening to that rubbish radio station.
Baker Street was our access to the city. After a fast breakfast in front of Sherlock Holmes' house Elisabet directly went to the Royal Academy of Music which lay close (the reason why we had booked the bus), meanwhile I visited our hotel, Parkwood Hotel in the vicinity of Marble Arch. The hotel room wasn't yet ready for check in, but I at least could deposit our luggage in the hall. Off I went for a trip through Hyde Park and Green Park, passed by the Buckingham Palace and went to the Museum of Natural History. 
Hyde Park resulted more boring than expected, the surroundings of Buckingham Palace, needless to say, were crowded with tourists but the Museum of Natural History ... wow, what a museum! I stayed there until I was thrown out. From South Kensington Station I then took the tube to Bakerstreet where I re-met with Elisabet at 6 pm. We got her luggage to the hotel, went out for having a Pizza nearby and hit the beds early. 

The Serpentine

Tuesday - Our first breakfast at the hotel was awesome. We could choose between dishes such as fried, boiled or scrambled eggs, tomato, baked beans, bacon, sausages and cereals with milk. I liked that. The only thing I would critizise is, that only filtered coffee was available. On Tuesday, I again went to the Natural Museum on foot. This time, by contrast, instead of Hyde Park I explored the Kensington Gardens, which I liked better. I was impressed by the amount of wild but absolutely tame squirrels I encountered in the park. One of them even climbed my leg (and scared me)!

Amazingly tame, scaring, furry fellow

I passed by the Peter Pan Statue and went, north again, to the Italien Gardens. After snapping some photos I passed by a statue called Physical Energy and also saw the King Albert Mamorial, which, in my opinion, is very impressive though of bad taste.

Kensington Gardens - Italian Garden

Diplodocus in the main hall (as seen here)

Charles Darwin

During the whole rest of the opening hours I stayed at the museum where I explored the better part of all expositions. When I finally reached the upper floors where gemstones and crystals are at display, I admit, I only was strolling around and barely studied any of the exposed items. Finally I dedicated my attention to the Darwin Center, where the proceedings of capture, preperation and storage of specimens as well as issues concerning their biological classification are explained. Only this part of the museum may well be worth a visit of a duration of an entire day.

The Shard

After leaving the museum I got a glimpse of the Shard and decided to go there. Since I didn't know exactly where it's location was, I decided to take the tube to Southwark. I wasn't too wrong and only had a short walk to do, for the closest station would have been London Bridge. Public access to the Shard won't be open until next year and a visit of the observation platform is told to cost about 25BP. The only thing I could do was to snap a photo.
After meeting with Elisabet, we again had dinner near Marble Arch. The poor girl really did not get to see much of London.

On Wednesday I decided to explore Regents Park. My walk towards it led me through some rather beautyful streets garnished with private parks and expensive cars. I'm not sure, but I was told that Tony Blair lives there and actually have seen a heavily armed policeman watching over one house. It wasn't until I saw the green copper dome of Madame Tussauds that I realised, Regents Park lays right behind of the Royal Academy of Music, where Elisabet was taking her course.

In Regents Park

I spend a couple of hours walking through the Park which not only offers wide surfaces of grass where the rest seeking citizen can run or play games, but it also has areas of a more natural aspect and even intensively gardened parts with blooming flowers. One of the latter, the Broadwalk, led me to a tube station and once again I went to South Kensington Station, this time for visiting the Science Museum.

Black Diamond, I think

Its main hall is largely dedicated to steam technology, hence the conversion of energy contained in hot steam into mechanical work, who wonders, considering that James Watt was British. I have to admit, that I didn't understand much of the exposition, perhaps because some very important key roles of the exposed machines weren't explained. I consider the exposition dedicated to steam power of the Museum of Terrassa being much better. My personal highlights of the Science Museum were some rockets, planetary probes and, obviously, the Apollo LEM mock up as well as the original return capsule of Apollo 10.

Apollo 10 return capsule

Upstairs was a large room displaying all kinds of planes and jet engines, well worth a visit.

Apollo LEM mock-up

The next thing I did, actually was what I most liked of this year's London visit. I walked to a cemetary which I had found on the map we had been given in the hotel. Brompton cemetary is located in Chelsea, quite close to the Chelsea Stadium and it's amazing.

Brompton Cemetary and Chelsea Stadium

Falling Angel

Mausoleum

Cuty

I've never seen anything similar. The gravestones were old and many of them inclined or even had fallen over. The grass seemed totally untrimmed and was so high that many graves were totally covered or hidden by it. I'm sure, Brompton would make a good spot for gothic parties and horror movies, but it also serves perfectly well for a relaxing walk. Skilled photographers surely could snap some awesome pictures there. I again was surprised by the ultra tame squirrels I actually had to affright repeatedly, did I not want them to climb me and bite my neck. We all know they are blood sucking creatures from the underworld, don't we?

Crows and graves

My way back to the hotel led me through the Holland Park, as well as the area close to Kensington Palace, where lots of embassies are located and it's forbidden to take photos. Pretty nice places to live I found there.

On Thursday, I first visited the Imperial Museum of war. I'm not a weapon freak, but I think it's interesting to see, how ingenous our race is when it comes to warfare and killing. And I like big things. Most rockets,planes, tanks, cannons and nuclear bombs are big.

Crowded sky

V1

Big bullet of a German rail based cannon 

The part I liked most, though, was a rather sad section about the holocaust - the mass murder of jews and other minorities which the nazis had declared enemies of the German Reich. In my opinion it's necessary to learn about what happened in Germany during the nazi era, although a visit of such an dramatic exhibition can well ruin one's mood for the rest of the day. Obviously, the information I gathered in the war museum by no means was totally new to me, but the way it was at display was very  impacting. Some interesting statements of politicians, militars, victims and perhaps philosophs were spread throughout the rooms, such as:

Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also - Heinrich Heine

Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

The essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility - Sea Lord John Fisher

The museum's visitor, I think, is invited to reflect on the sense of these quotes and some of the displayed items, as for example the following:

Little Boy mock up

After the War Museum, I went to a museum for gardening which was closed. Due to the location of the latter - on the shore of the Thames, I made some real sightseeing and walked from where I was to the Tower Bridge, visiting the Tate Modern in between.

Tower Bridge, ready for the Olympic Games

I like the building of the Tate Modern, a refurbished Power plant from the same architect who also build the Battersea plant - the most beautyful building in the world. So beautyful indeed, I didn't even dare to visit it this time. Later, when I met with Elisabet, we had a short walk to the Kensington Gardens. This photo of her shows she was actually in London, too.

Elisabet and Peter Pan

Friday, our last day in London I went to the British Museum, keen to have a look at the Rosetta Stone. I took a Photo of it, but due to the fact that there was a huge crowd of curious people surrounding it and the stone being protected by seemingly bulletproof glass, the result was rather bad.

Nice ceiling

After having seen the famous stone, I went straight for the Egyptian hall, which was very impressive, but was I to visit the British Museum again, I wouldn't repeat this strategy. There are plenty of interesting exhibition halls dedicated to cultures from all over the world, but once you've seen the old and big Egyption stuff, the rest seems no longer that interesting. I think one should begin with the less famous areas and work one's way up to the Egypts.

Impressive Statue

African Statue

Main Hall

Friday was shorter, because our plane to Stockholm awaited us at 7 pm. We had booked a flight from London City Airport, so that once Elisabet would finish her classes, we didn't have to travel the whole way out of the city to Heathrow. At half past 4 I picked her up at her Music Academy, we then went for our luggage and finally took a combination of Tube and Docklands Light Railway to the airport, where the second part of our holidays was due to begin...

Planes and ships, now I know why it's called airport