Wednesday 11 May 2011

Personal Priviledge

Today, on a whim, while I was looking out the window of my morning commuter train, I snapped a picture of Hackney Downs - an urban oasis of greenery in the middle of East London. The place is kind of a miracle, and I had this moment of gratitude that my daily commute just so... beautiful.


So then, I thought - "Heck. Why not try to document the total coolness of my daily commute as it goes along?" So here's Liverpool Street station, where my train arrived...


From there, I exited the station and crossed the street to a bus stop - this picture shows the building my bus stop is in front of. Yes, it's been converted into a supermarket. Gorgeous AND convenient!


I grabbed this shot from the bus as we whizzed through the City (City with a capital C is the term for London's financial district, for you non-locals. Kind of like lower Manhattan.)

This is the Monument to the Great Fire of London - it's 1666 feet high, and that's a clue to the date of said fire, if you're paying attention.


In an effort to pack more walking into my day, and to enjoy the sunshine, I got off a stop early so that I could walk across London Bridge, from which this shot was taken.


Then I walked along the river for a little bit before cutting through Hay's Galleria and passing the world's MOST bizarre and amazing sculpture - the fish shaped boat here is just like something out of Terry Gilliam, and the oars actually row through the water. It's wonderfully odd.


And finally, I stopped at this coffee shop for my utterly-essential morning latte. 


So yes, consider this a true confession - I am a foreign dwelling, urban living, train taking, latte sipping LIBERAL.

It's a pretty darn great thing to be, actually.

(Click on any of these pictures to see them larger.)

2 comments:

Alan said...

What a lovely commute you have, at least in the fine spring weather we've been enjoying. I am wondering about the height of the Monument however, as 1666 feet would make it taller than the Empire State Building which is quite an achievement for the 17th century.

Obama London said...

Ah. Yes, I've investigated and the technical term for what seems to have happened here is, "I got that wrong". Monument is 202 feet tall - tallest freestanding column in the world. But not, ya know, skyscrapter tall. In my defence, I think I vaguely remember a London Tours bus driver saying something vaguely like that ten years ago. So my sourcing was impeccible, I can't think where I went wrong.