Kate, Cobblestone and Counting Crows

Hello! As always, you can follow along with my pics here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bbergey/TheCity

I had another pretty eventful weekend, although obviously the Brits don't celebrate the 4th of July. So I had to work on the 4th itself, but I won't complain since we get many more bank holidays throughout the year.

My old roommate in Boulder, Kate, was in town for a quick break from her Peace Corps duties in Africa. She was meeting her parents, 2 brothers, and a couple other friends in London before they went off to explore other areas of the UK. I met up with her and her family Thursday and Friday after work which was great! I joined them for dinner both nights, at very nice resturaunts I should add, and her parents paid the bill which was extremely generous of them. I think Kate said that they figured out that it would cost 2 months of her salary in Africa to stay in their hotel in London for one night. Yikes! On my way back from dinner on Friday night (around midnight), I got on a bus and started feeling pretty good about myself and my ability to get myself around on my own. I got on a bus and knew where it was going and knew I could walk home from it's destination since I had done it before. But I was wrong. Two hours later, I was still walking around trying to get home. It ends up that if I had just walked five minutes further than where I had been an hour earlier, I would have known exactly where I was, but instead I got home at 2am absolutely beat. Oh well, now I know!

On Saturday I decided to do a bit more exploring around the city. I took the tube down to what's called "The City" and set off by foot. I immediately noticed that I was pretty tired from my 83 mile random walk the night before (yes, that's a bit of an exaggeration). The city is one of the oldest parts of London. I believe it's where London actually started and it is still pretty much considered the heart of the city, although it has spread so much that in my opinion the heart takes up all of the areas around The City as well. The neat, but strange, part about most of this area is that on a weekend it was rather dead. A lot of people work here, but not necessarily live in the area. So the streets were real quiet and a lot of the shops and resturaunts weren't even open! This part of town is really strange as it is a fascinating mix of very very old in a very modern setting. Many of the sidestreets and allyways are satill made of coblestone. And once you know what to look for, you start to realize that many years ago this place was very different.

My first sighting was The Royal Courts of Justice. I think this is where you can still go to watch trails and heare the boos and hisses from the crowd. Definitely something to experience at some point. As I meandered through the streets, I made my way to St. Paul's Cathedral. The church itself is massive and pristine. I was too late to get the tour, but the view from the top looked like it would be great! Just across from the cathedral is the Millenium Bridge. I have no idea what the signifance of this bridge is, but it is a foot bridge across the Thames River to the south bank. On my way down river, I made sure to check out a number of areas that showcased the London Wall. This is a defensive wall the Romans built around 200AD. Apparently the wall completely dissapeared over time and more recently has started showing itself again. You can see in the pictures that there are random pieces of the wall and rubble left surrounded by modern buildings and museums. It's really cool to come across.

Finally I made my way down to the London Monument, the London Tower and the Tower Bridge. The Tower (a really old castle of sorts) sits right on the river and I think was protected by the Wall, along with it's mote and other defensive forces. The Tower is really cool and completely random to come across in the middle of a big city. Again, I was too late to actually go inside but it looked like it would be fun. Apparently the castle burned down at some point (how does stone burn???) and was rebuilt a few hundred years ago. To me, the Tower Bridge is a very iconic signature of London. See for yourself in the pics!

On Sunday I went to the o2 Wireless Music Festival in Hyde Park. I managed to get tickets online to the sold out concert; Sunday was the final day of the 4 day festival which had 4 stages and tons of bands each day. The main stage on Sunday hosted the following artists that I saw: Goo Goo Dolls, Powderfinger, Ben Harper, and Counting Crows. Earlier in the day I walked around to the small stages and listened to some local acts that were great! The highlight, however, was definitely Counting Crows. I have always wanted to see them live and they did live up to my expectations. Great performers and they made their well known music unique and lively. It was great!

Of course it's not a true Brian blog post without some mention of food. At the concert, I was given a free lunch voucher for texting a number, so of course I did it! I decided against the traditional festival fare of burgers, chinese/thai/noodles, or hot dogs and got something different and local...a meat pie. It's basically a pot pie with different fillings; mine had lamb, potatoes, peas, seasonings and maybe some other stuff I'm forgetting. Then they slop on a huge spoonfull of mashed potatoes (mash) and mashed peas and then gravy. I didn't get any gravy, but as you can see in the pic, I did replace it with ketchup. I'm not sure it's possible, but the English may like ketchup even more than Americans. That together with a love for mash, sausages and meat, how can one go wrong?!

On Monday I started getting a taste of true London weather. When I left work it was 13 degrees and raining, and it had been raining pretty much all day. The forecast shows this type of weather all week. Great. On Wednesday my flatmate and I are going to a concert nearby to see Band of Horses. I'm really excited to check out a local venue, especially this one because I've noticed that there are a number of great shows coming up. More on this later.

Also, where will Brian decide to go this weekend? He is definitely thinking of leaving London. We shall see... And what about the weekend after, which would be his Birthday weekend...

Oh, the suspense.