23rd Jan: Leaving London; arriving in Nottingham

I left London on the 23rd. I booked a bus ticket again. The train was something like 30 pounds and took 2 hours, whereas the bus was 15 or so and took 3 hours.

Checkout went fine. I left the hostel a little before 10. The bus was to leave at 12. Collecting tickets went fine this time. I checked online while ordering to see if it told to provide some number when collecting tickets. It said nothing about it! But I knew I needed the number this time, so I had it (contrary to the trip to Brighton).

That had all gone quite quickly, so I had 1.5-2 hours to wait. Better early than late.

The bus station: Victoria Coach Station.

Obligatory shot of the day. Since people go in and outside a lot, there are some pidgeons flying around in here. The pidgeons like sitting up on top of this pillar behind me and sometimes need to poo off it. I found this out a little after this photo when some landed on my shoulder. Pretty gross!

The bus trip went fairly pleasantly. We drove up the M1 most of the way I think. Earlier, the weather reports said that there could be light snow on this day. They changed that a day or two before, but I was still looking out hoping that maybe there'd be some in a field somewhere. Unfortunately there wasn't. But it the scenery was pretty good. For the journey I had a nice soundtrack of Fredrik Thordendal's Sol Niger Within, Meshuggah's I and Catch Thirty Three, Devin Townsend's Ocean, and some other stuff. Good to hear some music again.

A huge power plant of some kind. 8 big chimneys. I think this is coal powered, since there were big stores of a black-ish mineral next to it. This is just a little before Nottingham. It seems to be called "Ratcliffe".

We landed at the Nottingham Coach Station. I didn't take a lot of pictures since I was feeling pretty tired and didn't really feel like being a tourist just yet.

I didn't really know how I was going to get to the university. I hadn't thought about it. I wandered around a bit trying to find some busses. Then I found a bus station which had some info on it. I figured out which bus I needed to take from that, then that the busses go from the coach station. So I headed back there and got on my way.

I wasn't really sure where I needed to get off. But it sorted out. I was quite disoriented, so I got some rough directions. Headed through the university grounds, which I then realised were pretty large and had some steep hills. It was exhausting lifting all my stuff through there. I had about 30kg in total.

Finally found my way to the hall. I met a girl from Netherlands outside who seemed friendly. She'd just arrived as well, and told me I should go to the reception. The lady at reception made me fill in a form and then took me to my room. I was pretty happy to finally make it. I hadn't had a room to myself in quite a while, so this was good.

After sitting down for quite a while, I made myself get to dinner. It is catered accommodation, so I get three meals per week during the week and two on the weekends. I was very hungry, and they had a pretty good ravioli, some various salad, and an excellent raspberry pie with custard. So I was very impressed with this.

Dragging my way through the university grounds, hoping it's not too much further.

A nice street in the university park with some accommodation buildings on the side.

The first sign pointing to the specific building I'm aiming for (Derby Hall). Hooray! I'm heading in the right direction.

My room. It has a fridge and I can strew my stuff around and lock the door.

Notice that the fridge is positioned directly in front of the heater and also in the centre of the room. Strange design decision. If the cord for the fridge was longer, I'd move it...

View from my window. I'm one floor above ground.

I think after dinner I got the internet working. I had to pass their security checks which involved installing a virus scanner and doing some other junk. errgh.

Eventually I collapsed into some kind of sleep. The next day I had an orientation welcome to get to.

9th day / 22nd Jan: Hyde Park, Science Museum, Westminster Abbey, National Gallery

[ pictures of today: http://picasaweb.google.com/110144623598348247797/20110122?authkey=Gv1sRgCNrF-8DGyIzJZw# ]

I woke up feeling quite a bit better this morning. The early night was beneficial. My voice was decipherable, so I managed to speak a few words to the two from Philadelphia, so that they knew I was capable of communication.

This was my last full day in London, so I decided I would try and get a fair bit done.

I was really hoping to see snow in London, since they had a fair bit a few weeks before I arrived. But it looked like it wouldn't happen. At one point, this day was forecast for having light snow showers, but that changed to ordinary everyday weather of 6 degrees or so. The day before, they forecast for today a light sleet shower for the early morning. So I headed to Hyde Park, on a fairly far-fetched hope that there might have been some light snow here, since there is less heat from cars etc. But I don't think the weather was at all right for it. It was just cold.

Kensington palace. To me it doesn't look that great from the outside. But it was there, so I snapped a shot.

ducks, swans, and various other birds all going crazy.

Me. Feeling a little better.

These two squirrels are chasing each other around the tree. They can run around upside down apparently. They were quite fast, so this is the best shot.

Snow! Only this snow seems to be made of detergent, and is coming from a blowing device attached to this building.

The building above is, I think, The Serpentine Gallery. Free entry, except they seemed to only have an abstract video playing inside. The people from Philadelphia said there was a little more.

I headed out of Hyde Park, towards the Science Gallery, which is near The Museum of Natural History, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

'Royal College of Organists'. I think it's cool that such a thing exists.

This big brick pillar apparently doesn't need a label saying what it is or why it exists!

 On the way to the Science Museum I decided to walk through the Imperial College London since it has been right there beside me as I've seen the museums. They had a huge square stone tower for which I couldn't work out the purpose. I stopped in at a cafeteria by the library and got some nicely priced pizza that was good.

Very strange tower. Impressive, but I can't work out what they could use it for.

Here I am observing the students or staff members inside the university.

Science Museum was pretty good. They had some of those informative displays, which seem to say fairly little with a lot of words, but they also had some pretty cool things to see.

A hanging globe with very good quality projectors putting the three dimensional image of the earth onto it. The effect is seemless. It appears like a real earth, and there is no distortion of image. Animated graphics of weather movements were displayed as well.

The original first difference machine attempt made by Charles Babbage. This machine mechanically calculates things. One of the major steps toward the computer. Amazing.

Aprototype for a modern concept. An artist wants to make a clock that will keep time for millenia. He wants to build it inside a mountain apparently, because it will be big.

Apollo 10. I have to think this would need to be a replica. But nothing said it was, so it might be the original. If so, it is amazing.

The jet-powered hovering vehicle concept.

In the maths section. This mechanical device analyses differential equations. Amazing. It goes to 4th order I think they said. It can also draw a plot of what the solution function looks like.

A differential analyser made out of meccano. The first analyser made in Britain, or something like that.

This is a difference machine made recently. It uses the designs of Charles Babbage who wasn't able to get it constructed while he was alive due to it costing more than two war ships and some personal problems. It uses techniques of his age and outputs an answer of 13 digits, all by mechanical means.

I could have seen a bit more at this museum, but I was heading for Westminster Abbey. I had only seen the outside and I was interested to see the inside before I left London. They had an "evensong" at 3pm where the choir sings some stuff.

On the way to the tube station, to get to Westminster Abbey, I found this underground walkway that seemed to go on for a long way.

Made it to the Abbey in time. Free entry if you go to one of these things. Hooray. No photos since photography is not allowed inside. I was at the second row. I managed to look around and see quite a bit of the abbey. It was really nice. Big windows. Lots of old grave stones on the floor. The organ sounded pretty good. The low notes had a lot of reverberation which was great.

After that I went across the road to see the Houses of Parliament. I wanted to see the big open space in there, since it was a big wonder during the 14th century I think. But the guy letting people in told me you can get in for free on weekdays, to see the politicians debating etc. Otherwise tours were something like 12 pounds. So I'll get back on a week day sometime and see it.

Then I went wandering through some backstreets toward Trafalgar Square where I was hoping to get inside the National Gallery for a bit.

I got a little over an hour inside the gallery before it was closing time.

They had lots of very famous painters. I like landscape paintings, so I enjoyed Claude Lorraine. They also had collections of Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and others that I have forgotten. It was very interesting seeing these.

After that it still felt a bit early so I wanted to do something. But I didn't really know what. I decided I'd walk up to Buckingham Palace, then to the Wellington Arch, and then back home.

Messages at each intersection telling you where the cars will be coming from.

A hotel person dressed in the traditional way.

I did not know that Harrod's lit up with these lights.

I took an obscure path through back streets and found this cobbled laneway.

I walked past the Natural History Museum and found it lit up red with porsches and a lamborghini out the front for some private function.

Before going to the hostel I stopped by at Sainsbury's and bought some fruit, a frozen meal, and 1 litre of pineapple juice. I love pineapple juice.

I had a reasonably late night. Tomorrow I was to head to Nottingham.