Day 1: Wandering London

Yesterday I took a meandering tour of the city. By meandering, I really mean that I wandered the streets of London with a digital camera and no map. Of course I looked at one before I left, but that was hardly enough to keep me on track.

A few words on the streets of London are in order. First off, very few streets travel in a straight line. The streets are oftentimes poorly marked. There are no street signs on posts like in the U.S.; instead, there are (sometimes) signs posted on the buildings at the intersection. The maps I looked at were not terribly detailed, and there are lots - and lots, and then some more - of little side streets and alleys. There are also lots of squares (many of which are circular in shape) and gardens that the streets jog around. The streets around these squares or gardens usually bear the name of said square/garden, but I haven't yet figured out an indication of direction. For example, my dorm is on Tavistock Square. There are four streets around Tavistock Square called Tavistock Square. And to add to the confusion, there's frequently another road that leads into the square that bears a similar name (near my dorm, it's Tavistock Place).

The main purpose of my outing was to scout out the location of ND's campus (just off of Trafalgar Square), which is about a mile and a half from the dorm in which I'm residing. I did eventually find it, but not after traipsing through Picadilly Circus, strolling though Chinatown, and passing Westminster Abbey. I also saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and the big Ferris Wheel (ok, the British Airways London Eye to be more specific).

After finding the innocuous building that houses ND's London facilities and finding out that it was locked up, I decided to catch a quick bite to eat and head back. Now since I didn't take a very direct route from the dorms, retracing my steps would be terribly inefficient and hard to remember. I headed off in the direction which I thought was about right, but I was a little off and ended up well east and a bit south of Tavistock Square. Since I'd been walking around for about four hours at this point and had a ways to go before I'd be back in the dorms, I acceded to the complaints of my feet and took the Tube back to within a few blocks of Tavistock Square.

You can find photographic highlights of my trek (in addition to some pictures of my living quarters) here. Be sure to read the captions for details.