Letters to friends

Today, for a bit of color, I thought I would share with you some photo from the back passage a few houses down from my place.

It runs through the middle of 16 blocks of houses, and allows for pedestrian (and dog) access from 1 side of Harringay to the other away from the hustle and bustle of the main thoroughfares. There are also about 3 schools directly adjacent to it, so presumably it offers a safe way for the kiddies to walk to school.

Harringay Passage

Back Alley

It also seems to be a popular place for people to take their dogs for “walks”. I can tell this because despite the availability of special containers every block, there are always dog “walks” all over the alley.

I don't think the dogs can read

People seem to be very worried about the squirrels getting into their yards, and will often put up extreme measures to keep them out.

Squirrels keep out!

No squirrels allowed

Londoners are very environmentally conscious, and every day you can find evidence of many fine individuals putting out furniture and household goods for impromptu recycling. Simply pick and choose from a cornucopia of delights, yours for the carrying off. (Blue leather couch not pictured)

Another man's treasure

Yesterday we went to Greenwich to have a look around.

First we checked out the view of the Thames

The river Thames

Then we walked under the Thames using the Greenwich Foot Tunnel.

Greenwich Foot Tunnel

Once we got accross, and arrived in Greenwich, we stopped for lunch at Marks & Spenser (a posh grocery shop). £10 for a sandwich, a pasta salad, 2 small juices, 2 small bags of crisps (potato chips) and Sarahs English favorite chocolate, which I originally thought were called Original Walnut Whips, but now I think they might be called Walnut Original Whips.

Walnut Original Whip

For site seeing,we first went to see the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory. I got a photo taken with one foot almost on the East side of the world, and another foot well into the West side, and a third foot hanging out of my backpack, also on the West side.

Jake the Peg and the (Optimus) Prime Meridian

We also had a look at an interesting museum in the old Royal Astronomers house about clocks + seagoing chronometers, and how the first few royal astronomers had to spend 20 or 30 years mapping the moon and its exact position relative to the stars every night to help ocean navigation. One poor guy worked on it for 10 years, but his observations were to sloppy, and they had to be discarded. Sarah and her friend Jade were bored silly by this part, but I found it quite interesting.

Then we went to Queens House (a Queen from a few hundred years ago), where we looked at some art, a spiral staircase without a central column (the first of its kind in England!), and Sarah stood between some columns for a photo

Sarah and Greenwich park

And to round out the day we had a look in at the National Maritime Museum. My favorite bit here was the Stained Glass from the Baltic Exchange, which was moved to the museum in 1992, after a bomb attack destroyed the Exchange. The Swiss-Re Gherkin is built on the site where the Baltic Exchange used to be.

For Valentines day, Sarah and I went for a walk to Alexandra Palace Park. It is a couple of km from our flat, so we were able to walk the whole way there without to much problem.

Alexandra Palace and Park

At the park we had a look at the deer, and fed the birds in the lake.

Political prisoners

Greedy Canadians

The palace has been used for a lot of different things, and is still used as an ice skating rink and for TV broadcasting.

Alexandra Palace

Now, on day 3, we have had some sort of grit put on the sidewalk, which looks like a cross between cooked mince, and the stuff you spend most of your time on the sidewalk trying not to step in.

Sidewalk with grit and snow