My Home In Londontown

As promised, here is a short tour of my neighborhood. I meant to get a picture of the Cubana, which is a Cuban restaurant right outside my house, but I forgot to take my camera to work today (I work now), and my phone that takes pictures died a couple of weeks ago. I now have one that cost me seven dollars. I work in telecommunications, but you'd never know it. So to see the Cubana, you'll have to visit.

Okay, let's get started. Here is a view looking south from my front balcony.



And this one is looking east. That's the London Eye in the background.



Now Let's go inside.

This is my room. It's cozy, but comfortable. It's on the top (fourth) floor in the very back corner, so it's relatively quiet. I live with three other people, but they're all in the process of moving out, so at this point it would be pointless to introduce you.



This is the view outside my window, looking west. As you can see, it overlooks a community center, not a road, so it's pretty quiet for London.



This is also looking outside my window, looking to the left (more north) of the last picture. The building in the center is called the Old Vic. If you've never heard of that, you're so uncultured! JK I'd never heard of it until I lived here. But apparently it's a really famous theater, and Kevin Spacey is currently its artistic director.



Okay. Shall we go for a walk?

This map will help us. I live at A. The Old Vic is number 1. We're now going to go over the river, on the Westminster Bridge.



First, we have to go under this bridge at Waterloo Station. It's number 2. I really like this picture. When I first moved to London to look for a place to stay, I stayed at a hostel called the Walrus, which has a door that comes out right here. I immediately thought the neighborhood had character. Little did I know I would be living here soon!



Now we're on Westminster Bridge. If we look behind us, we can see the other side of the London Eye (number 4), as well as the County Hall (number 3), where the London Aquarium is (there are sharks, I've checked, but I'm still too poor to have visited).



If we look straight ahead of us, we see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (numbers 5 and 6, respectively). This is Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament was the opening picture of this fine blog post. Moving on.



Going straight on, We reach Buckingham Palace, number 7. If we turn right here, and go down the "mall," we can get to Trafalgar Square, and Chinatown where there's this really great Chinese restaurant that's all you can eat for only six and a half pounds! But we don't have time for that right now. Let's keep going straight.



This is Hyde Park.



So is this. Actually, we might be in Kensington Gardens. I'm not sure. Really, it's the same park, the only difference is whether you're on the east or west of the Serpentine lake in the middle.



This is the famous Peter Pan statue, also in Hyde Park.



Let's go back home. This guy's name is Clive.



Oh, no! It's gotten dark! (Just kidding, I planned it like that).

Here are the houses of parliament (number 6) at night.



Here's a London ghost. I'm not even kidding. This is a ghost.



Here's an artistic picture of the London Eye (number 4) I did. Just when I'm about to throw away my camera, it impresses me with some newfangled ability like great night pictures.



This one's even more artistic.



Walking out onto the Waterloo Bridge, we can see the Blackfriars Bridge in the distance. This is number 9. It's a double bridge, with a bridge for cars and pedestrians, and another one for trains. The one for trains is getting refurbished, ergo all of the cranes. Near the leftermost part of the bridge, you can see St Paul's Cathedral. That's about the most breathtaking thing in London, I have to say. The crypt alone is amazing. And there's a special chapel inside dedicated to American servicemen who died defending Britain in WWII, which gives me warm fuzzies. Did you know a church dedicated to St Paul has been on that site since 600AD? It's true. And it's only burned down three times.



I work somewhere between the end of the bridge and St Pauls, at number 10 on our map. I work close enough to St Pauls, actually, that I often eat my lunch (I always pack a lunch. two turkey-roll sandwiches, grapes, and peanuts, usually) on the steps of the cathedral.

Other things in my neighborhood (on my side of the river): The Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, The National Theatre, Southwark Cathedral and Southbank. But this was a lot of work, so you'll forgive me if I draw the line here. I like where I live, and it's close enough to some parks that I can escape while the weather is good (for one more week, most likely). Most importantly, I don't have to commute on a soul-sucking subway. I used to think I hated big cities, but I decided the thing I hate is public transit.

My job is engaging and challenging (I embarrass myself at least once a day), and you get a measure of pride in producing something that people value enough to buy. If I wasn't clear before, BMI sells reports, and I've written at least one article every day since I started on the 23rd. I specialize in Latin America. I've written about telecommunications in Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Cuba, Peru, Colombia, as well as a regional piece on all of Latin America. I would send you the articles, but I'm sure that's illegal since people pay for them. I'm learning a lot about telecommunications, and I'm trying my best to be interested in it, but it's really easy to get distracted by things more up my alley. Like, for example, going off on how the IFC (part of the World Bank) is using telecommunications as part of a development strategy for Haiti. I can mention that, but my article has to be about telecoms, so I can't dwell on it. It would be a lot easier to focus, except there are a few positions at my workplace where people do get to dwell on interesting things like that. I'm trying to figure out how to express my interest in doing that sort of thing without seeming like I'm not dedicated to my assignments. I've had such patient supervisors, after all, I would hate for them to think I don't respect their industry. I'm still working that one out.

Anyways, I think this video sums it up: