Tim and Jen Live Here

Spring, Beautiful Spring!

People will tell you that it’s always cold and gray in London, especially in late winter/early spring. But we found that’s not necessarily the case. Look at the gorgeous flowers we saw in mid-March. The temperatures were on the cooler side most days, but I think we may have had some time near 60F, so not too shabby. And you’ll notice some blue sky in a few of the later pictures. So we had some cooler evenings and I had to buy a sweater to keep warm. Pity.

Speakers’ Corner

We saw some unusual signs and heard people speaking on topics we would never have dreamed of ourselves. It was fun, though we left thinking most of the speakers there were definitely missing a few marbles. I particularly enjoyed these two signs. I have no idea where the oppressed male went. Probably had to go home and cook for his wife.

The Christian Atheist? I’m still trying five years later to understand that one. I get the idea of goodness not necessarily having to come from religion. I don’t get the “To Follow Jesus Reject God” part. But hey, to each his own, right?

Architecture/City Scape

London doesn’t have the Eiffel Tower, but it still has some pretty cool stuff to look at. Of course there’s the classic clock tower housing Big Ben. It seems I took pictures of it from several locations, but this is my favorite, taken from the London Eye.

And speaking of the London Eye, here is a picture of it, taken while riding it. We would both ride it again in a heartbeat if we go back. The views are fantastic, if you like that sort of thing.

Another photo taken from above is this really cool train station. I never knew London had a really cool train station, and I don’t know which train station this is, but there you go. Not far from the train station is Millennium Bridge - A pedestrian bridge over the Thames. It’s a pretty neat looking bridge. When they first opened it they had to shut it down almost immediately because it swayed so much in the wind. A few feet, if I remember right. They reinforced various parts and redesigned the hand rails to minimize that effect.

From the Tower Bridge we could see that there was a phenomenal amount of construction going on in London in 2003. Look at the number of cranes! And isn’t that just such a cool looking building? No idea what it is.

But that cool building in the last photo is sometimes referred to as “Ken’s Egg”. Ken because I think he was mayor or something like that and this building was essentially city hall. Egg because, well, isn’t that obvious?