Journey with Django: Around London Town

For much of our two month stay in London, we stuck around the homestead. I had, especially for the first few weeks, a load of computer work helping put together promo material for Simon and LoMax. Luckily we had the amazing back yard, so there were lots of running around opportunities for Django.

There are a whole series of canals running through London. Call me naive, but I had no clue about this before. Of course it makes sense, when you think about how old the city is, and that canals were once the main transport mode for merchants.

Here's Django in Little Venice, a 15 minute walk from where we were staying in Maida Vale.

These days the barges along the canal are homes. There is something terribly romantic about the idea of living on a barge. I wouldn't mind trying it one day.

The astoundingly detailed architecture of the Natural History Museum.

It is one of the free museums in London, so you can always count on a pretty big crowd. At least we got to see the dino exhibit this time.

I love this! I know we have little smart cars in the US, but you'd probably get a ticket for parking face out! The parking rules seem to be a bit more lenient in the UK and Europe. You can park facing either direction, at least in England. In London this makes things very confusing when trying to remember which direction the traffic is going. At least they have plently of 'look right' signs painted on the streets at crosswalks.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen such a sight (check out the footwear), and I'm sure this is not exclusive to Europe. I can't even imagine wearing heels for a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant, much less for a day out with the toddler and the buggy!

Simon, Django and I went on a canal tour from Little Venice to Camden Town. Isn't it charming?

Back in the day when the canals were the main merchant route, the land next to the canals were inhabited by the poor folks. Things have really changed and for a mere 30million British pounds ($47 million) you can call this little canal side mansion your own.

A floating Chinese restaurant

Coming in to Camden Lock

I snagged this next photo from someone elses blog. This is a shot of the Camden Lock where the elevation of the canal goes down and it's a simple but very clever device for boats to go from one level to the next (the lower gates are open in this shot). There are a whole series of locks throughout the canal system and I believe the tour guide said that the elevation difference between this one and where it eventually lets out into open water is about 80 feet.

This is an enormous shop entirely dedicated to the Techno world. You know, those all night parties with neon lights and just about the most monotonously undanceable dance music in existence? (sorry if I'm offending anyone, but it's just not my thing. Give me some good funk or reggae or disco or cuban or swing or hell, even some waltz music over the incessant thump thump of music you apparently need to take feel good drugs to get into). Ok, nuff of that rant. Anyway, just out of curiosity I went in to see how big this place was on Simon's recommendation. It was an absolute assault to my senses and I couldn't spend more than 1 minute inside. I wonder what effect those beats and lights have on the brains of the employees who spend a good part of their day there?
Well, the giant robot sculpures are pretty cool anyway...

Lots of goth in Camden Town (Goth on the right, French Maid 50s Retro Goth on the left..?)

Camden Town used the be the site of hundreds of horse stables that housed horses that pulled the barges, and horses for wagons. Now there's an area that's pretty much a horse shrine with innumerable huge horse sculptures.