People II

Alright, more pictures from London, all about people, both friends and strangers alike.
This was a crazy all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant that served their food in aluminum bread pans. Busy. Fun. Very aromatic.
Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery building. Neat!
The first photo I took coming out of the tube after running up the stairs holding hands with Brittani. There's Alecks, my friend, looking off into the distance.
First photo I took at St. Pancras/Kings Cross. Again, there's Aleck's head in the picture. Massive. The train station that is, not Aleck's head.
The crowds in Camden were really eclectic, from clothing styles to nationalities. Very diverse.
Brittani and me at the nameless museum just overwhelmed by everything.
Allyson and me at the nameless museum a little less overwhelmed and a little more excited.
Hey there. Let's act casual for the camera as we wait for the train. My friends are excellent, highly trained actors.
Of course, no big city would be a big city with out the requisite street performers. There was probably a dozen people just like this along the Thames. It was very touristy, but it was still fun.

Here's Suzanna, Allyson, and Brittani sitting motionless in silence after a long morning of walking and a great lunch.

Well there you have it, my photo diary of London. Hopefully I'll squeeze in one or two more adventures of other English towns before my time is done here. Have a good one!

St. Pancras

To kick off the posts about people in London, I wanted to impress upon you how unbelievably busy London is by showing you a 30-second video of the St. Pancras/Kings Cross station. Have a look:



That monkey noise in the background? That's actually a screaming kid trying to walk while strapped in his stroller and thus making life for his parents quite miserable. More later this week!

DTS Day Out

Hello Again! 5 of my friends and I just spent the day in London and I wanted to share a bit of our experience with you. Here's the first post about places. My next post will be about people.
I absolutely loved this teeny building, smooshed between two huge ones.
This is a shot of the parliament building, which is very beautiful. Even their security measures (fences, car stops, security huts, etc) are pretty!
Ah, Big Ben! We hung around on a bridge over the Thames to hear it chime at 12pm. There were about 5 dozen people taking pictures and/or filming it while we were watching. Sometimes it is fun to be one of the tourists!
This is the Parliament building from the middle of the Thames, where we welcomed 12 noon with Big Ben.
One of many boat docks on the Thames. This one was at the parliament building, which I thought was funny and wise to make sure the boat dock was super-secure as well.
Looking the other way on that same bridge is the London Eye. Even though tickets are £15, it was very busy and crowded.
Looking down the river from the London Eye, just some new buildings among really old ones...and a double-decker bus.
Some snazzy architecture at the St. Pancras/Kings Cross Station. We love to joke about St. Pancras, because people pronounce it "pancreas," which we joke that he's the patron saint of endocrine secretions. We've discovered there's a patron saint for just about everything (from jobs to hobbies to cities, etc) so it seems to make sense.
Moving on, after lunch we took the underground to Camden and wandered around for the afternoon. This picture is of the remains of a huge fire that people are still talking about, especially the vendors we talked to who say it has really affected business.
If you read the article on the above link you'll notice the words "Camden Lock" on the train bridge in one of the photos. Here they are, the locks. Very cool area. Yes, that's a Holiday Inn on the left and the building in front of it is a Starbucks.

Wellies come in some pretty cool prints and patterns here. I love the red ones with white and black terriers, personally.
Lastly, this is a pretty cool skate park right on the promenade of the Thames. It seemed to be pretty out of place because the area around it is very family- and tourist-friendly. But that's what made it cool.

Orange Squash

I wanted to let you know about two of my most-favourite British foods thus far: Shreddies and Squash. They are fantastic and here's why:

Shreddies

• Provide just a hint of sweetness, lots of crunch, and plenty of fiber
• Great for introducing the world to puppy chow
• Very affordable at 2 for 4 pounds at Sainsburys this week

Orange Squash

• I'm fascinated by the dilution process. Simply combine 1:4 parts squash-to-water in your favourite glass and you've got a great thirst quencher
• It's the adult version of Kool-Aide, actually providing 10% fruit juice
• I just discovered it is available in the US
  

In fact, it seems there are a few online stores in the US offering many of the sweet and savory foods that I've come to love and hate while I'm over here. Feel free to splurge and enjoy some squash, or any of the other products in their fine selection. I suggest some of Mr. Kippling's cakes, milk chocolate digestives and oat cakes to name a few.

London Fashion Week

We here at the Oval, specifically room 106, held our version of Fashion Week today, sporting the Spring 2008 look from the Oval Boutique. Hints from the runway indicate that fashion trends for this year include the female matador look, the 60s mod look, and the Rip Taylor bingo hall look. Enjoy!

(roommates Christine, Heidi, and Ester getting creative with free clothes and accessories from the boutique.)

Call on Me

Just a quick post from the phone booth outside of The Boot in St. Albans.

The View

Here are the follow up pictures from my last post that show the back end of the Oval looking east:
(This is a little garden to the east of the chapel, a great place to read books, watch people walk their dogs, and listen to the trains.)
(The view from the garden looking east. A lot of dog walkers walk across the field here by the fence on the right and over to the forest on the left. English dogs are just like English people--quite and not very friendly at first.)
(This picture might make you look for some sheep on the hillside, but there aren't any. It's a great view, isn't it? The commuter train runs right in that dip between the two hills. The train comes from London/St. Pancras to St. Albans to Harpenden to Luton and beyond.)
(There are a lot of odd things left over from the orphanage like this fence that has had a bush grow up and around it.)

YWAM Harpenden in February

It was 50F and sunny yesterday afternoon...in February. It was so great outside, I decided to take some pictures of some of the buildings on "the Oval" so you can get an idea of where I am every day.(The Factory from the rear, which used to be a bakery and letterpress for the orphanage. Now it houses a cafe (only used for conferences) and was a rockin' place to play hide-and-seek in the dark. Wow.)
(The Factory from the front. Currently people from BBC are building a TV set inside and are getting ready to film some sort of a 1-man show. No word on when auditions are.)
(The cool thing about the Oval is the back road on each side of the Oval. This is right outside our building, #9, looking east toward the factory. The small building on the right is probably an old power plant for the orphanage.)
(And a look inside the old power plant for the orphanage.)
(Each residential building on the Oval looks really similar from the front, but they're pretty different from the rear. Here's a shot of #7 from the back.)

(And a picture of the Oval's chapel, built by the orphanage. Unfortunately, the inside isn't very inspiring or even nice to look at, so enjoy the outside.)

Next up, the view to the east from the Oval--classic English countryside and rolling hills.

St. Albans Park

There's a cool park in St. Albans that looks a lot like a cover on of one of my alphabet books from Kindergarten--both so cool and interesting that I want to explore them. Thankfully, I can check this park out. To get there you have to walk down a cobblestone street and past Ye Olde Fighting Cocks , an 11th-century white-brick and dark-brown-wood building to get to this path that at all times has either a creek or a pond on both sides and ducks and people walking up and down it. It is a great place because it is so busy and peaceful and just beyond the mainstreet (high street) of St. Albans. (Entering the park with about 250 resident birds swimming, sleeping and eating handouts from humans)
(A glimpse at the pond on the other side of the sidewalk which goes for quite a bit further around the bend. I think of it as the Lake Harriet of Hetfordshire county because it is so busy.)

(This no-name duck and its friends had bright red eyes. Quite cute.)
(ah! Can you believe this no-name bird-duck-turkey and its pals are about the size of Canadian Geese? They acted like them too, wandering the sidewalk in packs and looking to people for food. Not cute. At all.)