1st days in London

So, the plane ride from Montreal P.E.T. to London Gatwick was super cumfy.......leather seats, 2 movies, supper, and then breakfast 3 hours later. There was actually a girl on the plane from university that I hadn't seen in 2-3 years, so it was cool to know someone from the get-go.

My sweetheart friend Kim (pic on left) greeted me at the airport, no less, at 8 am (meaning she woke up 5:30 and took the train. Kimmy shares a "flat" in the Islington London district with another good buddy and fellow montrealer Gabe (middle in pic on right), and with another awesome dude originally from Ontario, Abe (middle in pic on left). It's been a sweet transition into the trip since I know some people here who have welcomed me with such open arms.

The first few days in London have been exciting as I've seen pretty much all the tourist sites: Piccadilly Circus (pic on left), Covent Garden, Hyde Park, Trafalgar + Leicester Squares, Parliament with Big Ben, London Eye, Tower Bridge, Camden Town district and Greenwich for the prime meridian (pic on the right).

But other things have obviously been more exciting: interesting architecture like the "Gerkin" (pic on right) by Ken Shuttleworth and the "Loyds Building" by Richard Rogers which is all polished steel and looks straight out of an idustrial factory(pic on left). It helps that Abe is a very saavy Architecture major that has had work terms all over the world like Edinburgh, here, and Rome next fall.

Of course, the pints are relatively cheap here so we've been hittin' a few pubs and having some brews at the flat, as illustrated in the pics above. And as you can see, some pubs (in this case a Tavern) have some exciting names, to say the least.



The highlight for me so far has been the Hampsted district where I went walking in the woods and fell upon a funded park with full of animals and vast trees, water, flowers (just amazing) and then on my way back through the woods I fell upon some old mansion and estate (pic) that is also funded to upkeep the "backyard" which is ginormous and exotic, and open to the public. It has gotten rather annoying that I am going all over the place by myself and I consequently won't be included in many of the pictures, but I'm getting better at using the timer on my camera; as long as there's not too many people around.

I also went to check out "The Streets" Thursday May 11th at Carling Academy in Brixton.........It was insane; the people were mostly young and kinda assholes, the opening bands were just rap and raher shitty but the Streets were really good. Major downfall was the fact that I couldn't use my camera at the show cause it has a retractable lens, I guess meaning I can take better quality pics, but about 40 people just around me were going crazy with their cameras (we were straight away center about 4-5 standing rows back from the stage). I am also going to the EndClub Saturday night to see a huge DJ, Adam Beyer. I need to hit atleast one club while I'm here.

I have so many pictures of everything but I can't upload everything on this blog......maybe on snapfish or something later anyways.

Tune in soon.........

Taataa for now