London Exploration

Inspired by a Ms. Emily Bell, and realizing I have much more time on the weekends than I first thought, I have decided to take weekly excursions to the different parts (and there are many parts) of London. Having walked with her and a friend through Regent's Park last weekend, I decided to continue the park tours while the weather's still ok, so yesterday I ventured out to Hyde Park.

First, let me say that the parks here are incredible: huge fields of lush, green grass (area-wise I think Hyde Park is bigger than the BC campus, if not close to it). Weather permitting, there are always people out there playing rugby, soccer or just picnicking, but the parks are so big that you can still find a quiet corner (or field) to yourself. It presents a nice counterbalance to waves of suits crowding the sidewalks of central London.

I spent about an hour just wandering the park, and didn't even make it all the way across. Since walking through a park is pretty self explanatory, I'll just explain some of the pictures to follow.

Panoramic of The Serpentine, a lake in the middle of the park.

What is people's obsession with feeding pigeons? They're just dirty ass birds...and now they carry a potentially catastrophic disease too.

Speaking of birds, the pigeons and ducks here are aggressive as hell. This one duck, which is bigger than some small dogs, was stalking me for a good 5 minutes hoping I would drop some crumbs.

I'm Lewis and Clark with an iPod.


You could walk for hours through this park and not know there is a city of 7 million people outside.

Overall my London exploration began very well: a huge, green park and gorgeous weather, all to the soundtrack of my ipod's choosing, what a great day. Unfortunately the weather is really going to suck soon, so I'll have to move indoors for the weekend excursions. And actually in the next two weekends I'll be going to Paris (Harms, E-Bell what up) and then off to Amsterdam (yo yo Bing), so those will take the place of my explorations for the next two weeks.

On a side note we won our first basketball game last week, by 36 points, a strong team effort all around, and an end to what could have been the longest basketball losing streak of my life. Yes I've been spoiled by playing on great teams...