Irish #19 - Mission to the Moon - London After Midnight
Pomp, globally omnipresent (this means: the following is not a specific feature of this place) blatant commerce, some remnants of long gone, grim imperial glory and - here and there - some actual beauty. Not that I claim to have seen half a percent of what's there to see.
The city of London greeted me just the way I'd expect it to. Well, not without any surprises, of course. The first one awaited me in Gatwick, before I even could steer clear off airports for the rest of Sunday (morning - a flight from Warsaw, with some lingering mists of an almost-a-hangover and sleep deprivation; evening - the flight from Dublin to Gatwick, delayed 2 hours as the aircraft intended to take us over the Irish Sea had been struck by a lightning, with a serious headache from heavy sleep deprivation and exhaustion; in result "the rest of Sunday" meant ~120 minutes).
It was the railway. The Brits were the first to have steam railways (remember Stephenson's "Rocket"?) and kept pioneering throughout XIX and a good bit of XX century. And now, in the year 2008, a major line, connecting two airports and the city centre, is not electrified. Stench of an old Diesel engine coming from quite modern-looking train was actually a bit of shock. Not to mention disgust. Not so intense as the stench of piss at Warsaw Central, but this is one of the Gateways To London™, isn't it? No BriTGV, no Britkansen.
Comparison between London's financial district and the one in NYC definitely depends on small details of specific situation. When just sitting in the office doing my best to look like someone working hard, Big Apple had a much nicer view. Grayish brick walls all around are definitely less cheerful than the port and waters separating Manhattan from Brooklyn and Staten Island. But when I go out, even the well-bottom of Devonshire Square, with its dirty glass roof and the Big Cucumber dimly visible through it, is a very nice place , compared to northern part of One New York Plaza's neighborhood with those sharp and cruelly glistening boxes everywhere, cutting off the light and barbarishly dwarfing much more shapely, but smaller, buildings of the Wall Street's Catering District.
The Underground is much tidier and cleaner than the Subway. Speaking of which, I just couldn't skip an opportunity to have a footlong Subway with chicken teriyaki. As usual, the only difference to Subway-s in Letterkenny, New York and Warsaw was the baguette. Ok, the big one isn't called "footlong" in Warsaw. Just like a quarterpounder named MacRoyal :-)
OMFGWTFBBQ!!11 Short and stammering as it is, but a note in English? Nope, I don't think it's gonna become any habit of mine. It's just that I really, really hate those tiny wee toys pretending to be keyboards for gnomes and I don't even have a decently sized screen here, so I decided to pen-write. And me ThinkPad has OCR only for English XP
BTW - have you read your today's Scripture? Kthxbai.
*) I mean it's everywhere, in London too _^_
The city of London greeted me just the way I'd expect it to. Well, not without any surprises, of course. The first one awaited me in Gatwick, before I even could steer clear off airports for the rest of Sunday (morning - a flight from Warsaw, with some lingering mists of an almost-a-hangover and sleep deprivation; evening - the flight from Dublin to Gatwick, delayed 2 hours as the aircraft intended to take us over the Irish Sea had been struck by a lightning, with a serious headache from heavy sleep deprivation and exhaustion; in result "the rest of Sunday" meant ~120 minutes).
It was the railway. The Brits were the first to have steam railways (remember Stephenson's "Rocket"?) and kept pioneering throughout XIX and a good bit of XX century. And now, in the year 2008, a major line, connecting two airports and the city centre, is not electrified. Stench of an old Diesel engine coming from quite modern-looking train was actually a bit of shock. Not to mention disgust. Not so intense as the stench of piss at Warsaw Central, but this is one of the Gateways To London™, isn't it? No BriTGV, no Britkansen.
Comparison between London's financial district and the one in NYC definitely depends on small details of specific situation. When just sitting in the office doing my best to look like someone working hard, Big Apple had a much nicer view. Grayish brick walls all around are definitely less cheerful than the port and waters separating Manhattan from Brooklyn and Staten Island. But when I go out, even the well-bottom of Devonshire Square, with its dirty glass roof and the Big Cucumber dimly visible through it, is a very nice place , compared to northern part of One New York Plaza's neighborhood with those sharp and cruelly glistening boxes everywhere, cutting off the light and barbarishly dwarfing much more shapely, but smaller, buildings of the Wall Street's Catering District.
The Underground is much tidier and cleaner than the Subway. Speaking of which, I just couldn't skip an opportunity to have a footlong Subway with chicken teriyaki. As usual, the only difference to Subway-s in Letterkenny, New York and Warsaw was the baguette. Ok, the big one isn't called "footlong" in Warsaw. Just like a quarterpounder named MacRoyal :-)
OMFGWTFBBQ!!11 Short and stammering as it is, but a note in English? Nope, I don't think it's gonna become any habit of mine. It's just that I really, really hate those tiny wee toys pretending to be keyboards for gnomes and I don't even have a decently sized screen here, so I decided to pen-write. And me ThinkPad has OCR only for English XP
BTW - have you read your today's Scripture? Kthxbai.
*) I mean it's everywhere, in London too _^_