|
| Live from London | | Date Created: Sep 23, 2005, 01:56 AM |
 Hey everyone! I thought I'd take a few moments to send a greeting out from my current location on the globe, which happens to be a town in a suburb of London, England!
Having a great time so far. Lots of running around, lots of spotting of famous sites and admiring the architecture and life from another part of the world.
London is a truly interesting place, with lovely parks, incredible monuments, and a diverse culture. Since we've been staying and traveling with locals, we've had the added bonus of learning about life out here from the inside, a truly different perspective from our normal excursions.
In the course of nearly a week, we've walked miles and miles, ridden the Tube (or Underground) over and over, and have absorbed London from an historic point of view (visiting the British National History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Modern among others); a purely tourist-y point of view (Big Ben, The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square); a cultural point-of-view (catching 3 of the West End's top theatrical hits: the super hit revival of "Guys and Dolls" (starring Ewan McGreggor (Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars)!), "Billy Elliot" (London's sold-out musical based on the movie with music by Elton John), and Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest, "The Woman in White"); and simply a visitor's point of view (Harrod's Department Store and Kensington Gardens & St. James' park, the former two of which feature memorials to Princess Diana; and purely as fans, visiting sites long familiar to us for some reason or another. The highlight of which was today's trip to St. John's Wood, which featured important stops for Jen & myself: Lords Cricket Ground (for her), and the recording studio once inhabited by The Beatles, Abbey Road.
Obviously, I'll have a lot to report upon when I return, but I thought I'd share the latest pictures first, since visiting Abbey Road was a sheer highlight for me.
When we were planning this trip, I hadn't stopped to consider the Beatles aspect of things, as I figured most of their surroundings would be in Liverpool, and we were hours from there. However, they also had a lot of individual things going on in and around London, and seeing Abbey Road today up close and personal brought a lot of that excitement of why we're here back. (I also enjoyed our trip to Lord's. Though I'm not a Cricket fan by any stretch, I found the tour fascinating and promise to share thoughts on that when I return.
So much to say but it's way past my bedtime here. I have noticed that while the Time Differential has not really hit me, I am making a lot of the evenings as well as the night. I'm up long past the others, and usually the first up, and don't find it necessary to sleep during the day, which is odd considering the amount of walking we've been doing over the past couple of days. To give you an idea, we spent four hours last night walking through the poshes areas of London with our friend Erika, who was kind of enough to give us a tour of some fun sites. I'm hoping my energy keeps up. We have a couple more days to go, here. That means a couple more days of sight spotting and running around and even one more West End hit to take in before it's all through. It's been an awesome adventure, which feels both like a long time being made or a quick week gone by.
If I don't get a chance to update before we leave, I will definitely try to set aside some time next week to put some thoughts together for you. I had wanted to provide regular updates while away, but in honesty, we'd get home so late from the Theatre this week , that I only really had time to write if I was up late or up early, and usually that time was quickly shot by the need to rush off somewhere. I should have more pics and stories up by next week.
For now, I bid you "cheers" with another shot from this historic day for me: Walking up the Abbey Road Pathway as the Beatles had on the cover of their last album ("Abbey Road"). It's something so many people do, but I couldn't help myself once I was there.
Enjoy my indulgence in the world of Beatle fandom. There are more photos up on the homepage (see the top of this page for details) :
|
| (Above, Me all smiles at Abbey Road Studios, St. John's Wood, London this morning. Below, me at the crosswalk made famous by the Beatles, Photos © 2005 by Tony Gonzalez. ) |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
