Exam marking season now underway so what better time to blog about my trip to Brussels a couple of weeks ago?! As with
Lyon and
Strasbourg, these places are a bally nightmare to get to. I avoided the silly o'clock flight from Dublin and took the plane from Belfast and Eurostar from St. Pancras. Makes for a better travelling experience I thought. And I was right.
Our flight flew right over central London, and had it been a better day it would have been like an episode of The Apprentice. I first noticed when we flew right over a massive train station that looked awfully like St. Pancras, except using my London geography knowledge I knew that St. Pancras was nowhere near Heathrow. It's not, but we still flew over it and turned the wrong way to get to Heathrow. That's why I'm not a pilot. Next thing I know we're over Greenwich and Olympic Park and I was reaching for my camera!
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Olympic Park. You can see the stadium, basketball arena, velodrome and village. Never mind those though, where's the handball arena?!
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| Home of 2012 Gymnastics. |
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| Canary Wharf. I can nearly hear The Apprentice music now...bum dadum badum badum badum badum ba dum dummmm... |
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| Right over Tower Bridge. You can't really tell except for its shadow in the Thames. |
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| Central London. I've picked out a few highlights for you below. |
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| I decided against annotating the plane wing and the Thames. I thought you could spot them yourself. |
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| Whitehall, the London Eye and Big Ben. |
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| Buckingham Palace and St. James' Park. |
Finally our jaunt over the hot spots of London was over, things became more residential and less obvious. Except for this place.
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| The blue seats of Queen's Club! |
And off in the distance, Wembley.
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| I feel the towers would have been harder to pick out that the big arch. |
It was exciting that morning to hear that Obama was going to be arriving in Buckingham Palace. I had a few hours before my train with nothing planned. So I headed to Buckingham Palace to see what I could see.
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| American flags on Pall Mall for one... |
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| and crowds were milling about. |
The little walk way you can see was left open so I, along with about twenty other people piled across the back of all their shots. I was the only one with a suitcase, however.
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| The BBC's Emily Maitlis was getting ready to go live. |
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| The Household Cavalry rode past. |
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| There were loads of cameras there. I saw them set up the one on the roof of the Palace, there were big stands and then there was this guy. |
The police on duty were deliberating sketchy about where the car was going to be coming from or going to. Understandable I suppose. I had picked out a place right beside the lamp post in this shot only to decide to move closer to the gates.
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| I picked the wrong gates though and definitely would have been better where I was. |
I, and my fellow hangers on, waited. And then we waited some more. And then a little bit more. It wasn't actually that bad, it was all good natured. I got talking to a group of American students were in London on a layover to Kenya for 12 weeks. I took their picture for them after it was all over so they have a nice group shot in front of the Palace. I'm such a friendly sort.
The finally big moment came, the cheers started and the President drove past. I wouldn't actually say I saw him so much as I saw someone waving in the back of the car. I took a video but it's a bit Jimmy White and if I were to put it on you'd really wonder if I saw anything at all. Like I said, I would have been better where I was. Oh well.
It took a while for them to let us out of the area in front of the palace. I didn't understand why. And then it became clear: William and Kate arrived. Ironically they went through the gate I was at, except I had moved to try to leave so all I saw was the car they were in. Not so successful. That said, I doubt I'll ever be closer to Obama or the Cambridges.
Or Emily Maitlis for that matter.
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