London 2

Last day in London. David and I took the Underground to Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Rain made for poor lighting for photography. Knee pain made for limited mobility. We looked for stations that had lifts and maybe 30% have lifts or escalators. The U.S. is really ahead of Europe with accessibility issues.




We had sushi in a Japanese restaurant at Picadilly Circus and watched outside activity in the rain.
Several streets in China Town had one Chinese restaurant after another.



At Trafalgar Square we saw two young men being thoroughly searched for a long time. Soon after that, there was a helicoptor overhead. I don't know if there was a high security alert or not.


The Trafalgar Square fountains have been cleaned up since the last time we were there and saw winos peeing in the fountains.

This is a sign we saw on the way to Westminster, an addition since our last visit.


Finally, we saw Big Ben in the rain. The bell foundry we visited yesterday made the bell for Big Ben.

























Bells, Bells, Bells

Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London. Click on photo below to hear the bells or use the link at the bottom.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3hTWdjclko

London

London, our last destination before flying home...

Yesterday we spent time with friends in East Ham and got a short tour of the area.
Rob showed us an old building that has been turned into a bar but what most fascinated him was that the figures with nipples. He didn't seem to notice that they also had belly buttons.
I also shot a busy spider who didn't seem to notice the human with a camera.

We took the underground to Camden Locks area, quite abuzz with activity and hoardes of people, mostly young. This area is fantastic for people watchers.





Have you ever wanted an out-of-body experience? There's a workshop for you!

The end of the world has come to Camden Locks area.

We watched a young woman crank the mechanism to lower the water level and then push against a beam to open the gate.

Finally, we wandered about the crowded area that offered food from every part of the world and unusual seating for people lucky enough to find a place to sit and eat.









Sachsenhausen

A little while back on this trip, we visited what was once the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I mentioned this in a former blog but did not go into the detail that David goes into in his blog on Sachsenhausen. His blog is worth reading.

Modern Flight Travel - Reason Has Flown

I’ve been traveling by plane for the past forty years and quite a bit of that travel has been since the rise of terrorism. I remember years ago driving to Friendship Airport (now BWI) merely to go out on the observation deck to watch planes, close up, landing and taking off. Now I have to take my shoes off and go through a security check.

I understand the reason for this and am glad that airports have my safety in mind. I want to arrive at my destination in one piece. However, sometimes I think reason has flown away (pun intended).

Today we experienced the Hamburg Airport as we were preparing to fly to London. After all these years, we went through the most intensive security check we’ve experienced so far.

I’ve never been questioned about lipstick before. Today they examined every minute quantity of liquid, powder or paste. These items of ours combined fit into one regulation sized plastic bag and we were allowed two. I’m not going to bore you with the long list of regulations of the Hamburg Airport. You can read all four pages here if you’d like.

http://www.airport.de/en/sec_cabin_baggage_regulations.html

Under what items may be carried on, their regulations state that one small camera or set of binoculars can be carried on. Those who know me know that I carry expensive Nikon equipment in a backpack. I am NOT going to put $5,000 work of camera equipment in my check-in luggage. I did, however, put an expensive tripod and reflectors into my suitcase. They are not so much at risk with rough baggage handling or thieving baggage handlers.

Today I had to take all my lenses and camera out of my tightly packed camera backpack and put them in a separate tray to go back through X-ray. My pack was also resent through X-ray but I didn’t have to remove my flash.

So today I was questioned about my lipstick but not my electronic flash. I did not have to take off my shoes and I’d worn easy-to-slip-off shoes instead of the tennis shoes I prefered because of the long walk from the London Underground to our destination through East Ham streets.

By the way, I’d forgotten about two nail files in my purse and camera bag. Apparently they weren’t detected.

Campaign Puts Stock in Generic Photos

During the past several weeks we've visited friends in Germany, Denmark and now London. A couple days ago, David received an e-mail from a friend back in Baltimore that led to a discovery...

David finally found out how one of my images of him was used...on a Republican gubernatorial candidate's Web site. It goes without saying that David is a Democrat. When he found out how his picture was used, he said, "I'm an equal opportunity face. Democrats can buy me, too."

This is the picture in question, from my iStockphoto portfolio:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=617740



Laura Vozzella's politically-oriented TALK column, published Oct. 2 in The Baltimore Sun, has a cute account of it here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.vozzella02oct02,0,4353309.story

Denmark - North, Cold and Windy

For the last two nights, we stayed with Peter and Janice in Tornby (pop. 1000), Denmark where the wind blew cold and hard but the hospitality was warm. Janice, clay artist, and husband Peter, fisherman, live in an old two-room schoolhouse.

They showed us the North Sea where the wind was so strong that it was difficult to hold the camera still to take pictures--and where we saw an elderly woman strip and run into the sea for a refreshing (?) dip! Really!











We saw thousands of mackeral being loaded into trucks for the market and we also saw Peter's boat. He's been ill lately but is beginning to feel better so he can return to his fishing.
























They showed us the remains of a church that dates back to 1200 or earlier. The sea is reclaiming the land that it is built on. We wandered about the remains and cemetery in the rain.
















Janice also introduced us to their meals for the next year...half of a Calloway. Cute...furry...food.











Meanwhile for our food Wednesday night, we ate mackeral...fixed so well that David even ate it and went back for seconds!