Finally. I finally left London and did a little traveling outside my adopted city. London's a big city, and don't get me wrong, there is a ton of stuff to do here (which is why I haven't left sooner), but living in Europe for a year demands travel.
So, I took a modest little train trip to the cliffs of Dover.
First, I should describe how this trip was born. Since arriving here, I have been trying to gather up my flatmates and get them to all agree to travel somewhere within the UK. We thought it made a lot of sense to start off small, take baby steps, until we branched out to greater travel. We had settled on renting a car or two and driving west, seeing Stonehenge (yawn) and a few small traditional English towns. A big group, at least initially, only gets bigger. Soon, we were planning on renting three cars. And soon, as was bound to happen when this many people were involved, some of those people started trying to change our date of travel to better suit themselves. Some people wanted to go next weekend. Some people wanted to go the weekend after that. "There's a party I've been invited to," or "It's my friend's birthday," they would say. Eventually, the group got smaller and smaller until it fell apart.
That, actually, was fine by me.
So instead of renting a car, my flatmate Stefan, his friend Gernot (another northern Italian) and I decided to take a day trip somewhere on a train. We looked at a map, picked cities whose names we knew and looked it up on Wikipedia to see if there was anything interesting to see or do there.
We were coming up blank.
That is, until I reached for a small book Rachael had gotten me for my birthday, which details seven or eight day trips from London. What a perfect book! Immediately, we seized on the idea of visiting the cliffs of Dover and the castle that stands upon those cliffs. Tickets were booked to leave the next day. Here are some pictures of the trip:
The train ride took exactly 2 hours.
Canary Wharf area of London as we leave the city.
English countryside.
The castle as seen from the city of Dover, below.
The castle was used extensively during World War II. There was a pre-existing network of caves under the castle that was converted into underground bunkers during the war. We took an hour-long tour of them. They were used as a base of communication for operations over the English Channel, including the evacuation of Dunkirk. This etching in the sidewalk commemorates the Normandy invasion. The Germans thought an invasion was most likely to originate from Dover given that it is located at the shortest distance across the English Channel to France. Instead, the invasion originated further west.
This is a 1,000 year old Saxon church (left) and a 1,900 year old Roman pharos or lighthouse (right). The Roman pharos is considered to be the oldest building still standing in all of the U.K. It was at one point converted into a belltower for the church.
The inside of the Roman pharos.
The inside of the Saxon church.
The main inner part of the castle.
The view from atop the main part of the castle. The view features the Saxon church and Roman lighthouse.
The State Rooms of the castle.
After spending a few hours at the castle, we decided that since we had traveled all this way to Dover, we ought to walk to the English cliffs no matter how far away or how hard the walk would be. As the clouds moved in and a light rain started to fall, we began walking down a road with no shoulder towards where we thought the trailhead started. After a mile walk, and many cars later, we found the trailhead. Here is a short video:
And some pictures:
Next, here are some artistic shots I took from my iPhone:
Now, I have struggled ever since arriving in London to divine what "English cuisine" is, if anything at all. So far, the best candidate is pub food: fish and chips, bangers and mash, etc. Basically, some form of meat and potato. That's all well and good, I love meat and potatoes, but after a while, you've got to mix it up. That brings me to what is actually (probably) London's best cuisine, Indian food. There is a large contingent of Indians in London and hence a ready availability of all the ingredients necessary to make Indian food.
So tonight, I prepared a little of my own Indian food. In reality, it was more of an ad hoc stir fry with some Indian seasoning peppered on top, but what the heck. It was good.
First, fry up some carrots, onions and mushrooms (added to the skillet in that order):
Then, pour in a small can of chopped tomatoes:
Add chicken and some choice Indian seasoning (some kind of Saag liquid and seasoning composed of coriander, fenugreek and garam masala):
Let it simmer for a while:
And viola, a tasty Indian dinner (I almost forgot to take a picture it was so tasty!):
Thursday afternoon, my flatmate Stefan and I walked over to the Covent Gardens Apple Store and starting waiting in line for the iPhone 4s to come out. Nineteen hours and much discomfort later, we had our pretty little phones. Was it worth it? No. Not by a long shot. Let me tell you, people devolve into animals when iPhones are at stake. Next time, I'll pre-order it.
Here are a couple pictures I took with the phone from the Covent Garden area. They were all taken the day after the Apple Store craziness.
The marketplace in Coven Gardens just across from the Apple Store.
The Outside of the Apple Store. I spent many a hour in the far corner at the end of this walkway.
I'm told to understand the future, you have to first understand the past. Here are some photos from my final few weeks in New York, taken with my Holga 120mm camera.
DSK arriving at the Manhattan DA's office the day charges against him were dropped.
