London: Quick Thoughts

Hannah and I spent five days in London after our trip in Scotland. We were working for most of that time, so it's not like we were whiling away the hours at the Tate or Saint Paul's. Hannah spent her time walking across London from one client meeting to another, so she took in more of the city than I did (I used the tube to commute around), but nonetheless, I think we can keep this pretty short. Also, we've visited and commented on London before (see here, here).

Pedestrian Cross Walks

Throughout the UK, and particularly in London, most crosswalks include an advisory painted into the street urging pedestrians to check for traffic by looking either to the left or right (always the direction you are unaccustomed to checking as an American). This is - I think - one of the strongest indicators that people in Britain are perhaps driving on the wrong side of the road. In effect, the British government feels that in order to keep some meaningful number of pedestrians alive a little longer, it would be wise to include this advisory on some large portion of their pedestrian cross walks. This is not a road safety policy that any other country we've visited has felt the need to implement.

All that being said, I will say that London has an unbridled neuroticism when it comes to road safety (see below).

OK, simmer down, London.

Street Art

While staying in Shoreditch, we came across some great street art, which I wanted to share. Photos below.

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We're Back!

Paris, France - We've returned to Europe for a three-week sojourn in France, Switzerland, and the UK. We're obviously very excited. We arrived in Paris Sunday around 11AM. Our approach to jet lag is akin to tearing the bandaid off quickly: We purposely sleep little if at all on our transatlantic flight (below is a photo of Hannah, trying not to sleep on the flight), consume copious amounts of caffeine after we land, slowly descend into irritability and mild delirium, and then collapse after staying up as late as we can on our first night in Europe. Our body's, overcome by shock from this maltreatment, eagerly accept a full night's sleep, even if it's offered at an hour that's entirely out of keeping with our normal schedule. Works like a charm. After depositing our things at the hotel, we aimlessly wandered around Paris for a few hours before meeting up with Maggie, an acquaintance of Hannah's from work. Maggie took us to the wine bar Delicatessen where we ...

Fording the Fjords

We stayed one night in Ålesund and for a few days in Øye. These cities are fun for me at least partly because they use letters unique to the Danish-Norwegian alphabet, the 'a' with the circle on top and 'o' with the line through it (official letter names pending further review). Ålesund is a port town of about 70,000 on the western side of Norway on the Atlantic coast. We landed there around 1100PM, but it looked more like 700 or 800pm, owing to the latitude (about 62 degrees north). Throughout our stay here, I've been very excited about the (nearly) never-ending daylight. The sun sets at about 1130PM rises about four hours later, but the hours between are marked more by a duskiness rather than a true darkness. We only stayed in Ålesund overnight (if you want to call it "night") before departing the next morning for Øye, which lies at the tip of a remote Fjord, the Norangsfjorden. Some locals told us that another nearby town, Urke, had less than...

Edinburgh

We stayed in Edinburgh for two days to conclude our Scotland adventure. Hannah spent a semester in Edinburgh in her spritely college days and she remembers it fondly. As we wandered through the city, Hannah would point out various places and reminisce. Here was the restaurant where she would gather with friends to celebrate special occasions (The Outsider), here was the local café they frequented between classes (Peter's Yard), this was the park she walked through to get home (The Meadows), and there is the shitty hostel she stayed in when she arrived (less interesting!). Edinburgh was fun. We liked it more than Glasgow. Edinburgh had more to see (more ancient castles, museums and monuments) and the city was denser and more lively. Glasgow just felt more utilitarian. Hannah - of course - led me to the far-flung corners of the city in an effort to find the newest and best food, including marching me straight out of Edinburgh and into the neighboring city of Leith. We ate well...

The Neutral Zone

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