Wandsworth

Here is the next installment of my blog of London. Before I begin, email any thoughts on the subjects, pictures, etc…. (Oh yeah, any who comment or criticize on or about the blog should remember this is a g-rated site, so be nice). Let me know if you want to be notified when this blog is updated, I’ll send a group email to those interested. This episode is about Wandsworth. You will see a few of the sites I see on my walk/ride to work and back. I am staying in a room in this house in the Wandsworth area. No the room is not under a stair case or anything like that. All the houses tend to look a like, I’m glad this one is on the corner. It makes it a bit easier to find.
The residential streets in London are generally very narrow with only a small lane between the parked cars for you to drive. So driving on the wrong side of the rode isn’t a problem a lot of the time. Oh by the way the cars are tiny, Mini Coopers are everywhere but they seem large compared to the Smart cars. I’ll try to get pics of some of the various transportation vehicles people use here.

Back to the walk, a few blocks away is Wandsworth Common. This park has everything, ponds, bike/walk path, fields of grass and a lot of other park stuff.

The parks seem to be used a lot and you can see people doing all sorts of things, especially on weekends.
Hey C, this would be a great place to fly a kite.

There are only a few places to cross the numerous train tracks.This one is pretty busy all the time. The bars are to slow the bicyclists and the mad scooter kids down a bit.

The ponds always seem to have quite a bit of wildlife in and around them. I’ll try to show some pics when I get them. Here are a few of the birds I've seen so far.
This Grey Heron hung around for the whole day. Notice the Canada Geese in the background, they seem to all over the place. I’ve seen Coots and Mute Swans nesting in these ponds.

Ok back to the walk, some of the signs are interesting to say the least. This sign struck me as funny. I didn’t actually wait around to see if there were any humped zebras crossing but it would be cool to see.
Crosswalks here are a bit of a life endangering process, especially for Americans. First of all no matter how hard you try you always look the wrong way when crossing the streets. This is a problem since the majority of Brits drive along pretty fast and don’t seem to care if there is a crosswalk or not, doesn’t matter if it’s humped. Of course this is the same way in the states (at least in DC).
Ok pubs are all over the place, sometimes in the oddest locations. Pubs also all tend to look alike. I’ll probably do a whole blogisode on pubs at some point. This one has pretty good fish and chips, the staff is very friendly and even helpful.

Along the way to work I pass the Wandsworth prison, not a cheery place but that’s probably the way it should be.

Across the street is a garden shop. They actually sell bags of help; I guess that’s a cheap price.

Taxis are common here and come in all colors, the drivers all seem to be able to speak English, go figure. This immediately reminds you that you are not in the states. Scooters and motorbikes are also ever present. Bikes and motorbikes get to squeeze through traffic and are always the first to go when the light turns green.

Busses are common as well. It’s pretty cool seeing the double decker busses all the time. How they manage making some of the turns or not running over cars and bikes is beyond me.

I guess it’s beyond some of them as well.

It’s got to be odd to have something that big come through your brick wall. One rule you quickly learn is that the busses have the right of way. In a lot of places you see these small plastic things in the middle of the roads.

Theoretically you can go half way and wait for the other side to clear. After seeing that bus accident this doesn't seem that safe.
Ok that’s enough for now, write and let me know what you think. Next time I'll include a few actual tourist attractions that I've been to so far.

London

Hi All,



I am finally writing to everyone since I seem to be really lousy at emailing. So this blog is about my experiences in London. You will see a lot of pictures of places and things you have seen in the travel guides because I am a tourist. Then again you will probably see pictures they wouldn't ever put in the travel guides. All will probably be accompanied by my own strange sense of humor.

First of all I am over here working on a moth project at the Natural History Museum. The butterfly from above is in the Creepy Crawlies area of the museum. You are probably going to see a lot of insect related pics so be prepared.


This is of course what you see when you first enter the museum. I visited during the week so notice the lack of people. I'll include a few more pics of the outside next time. I'll also show what it's like on a weekend, yuck. Admission is free but I hope you like crowds. Anyway they are in the middle of reorganizing and adding on so they have moved all the Lepidoptera (moths and Butterflies) and a few other small insect orders off-site. They will apparently stay here until the rennovation project is completed (sometime late 2008). The site is called the Wandsworth facility (see next pic). Not much to look at on the outside but the Lep collection on the inside is the largest and arguably best in the world.
















This is all for now. I hope to add more in just a few minutes. Just need to see how this looks.