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EU01 :: London (Part One) :: 90 photos

  • Thread starter Christopher DeWolf
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Christopher DeWolf

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you last heard from me in june, when i was about to leave with my girlfriend, the indominatable mlle. laine, for europe. six weeks, seven destinations, eleven plane rides: we're back. it wasn't quite a whirlwind tour, since we had about a week to soak up each place, except for lisbon.

i am preparing ten threads that i will post in august and september. this is the first.

DEWOLF IN EUROPE :: Photo Schedule

01 -- LONDON (Part One)
02 -- PARIS (Part One)
03 -- ROME
04 -- MADRID (Part One)
05 -- PARIS (Part Two)
06 -- LISBON
07 -- MADRID (Part Two)
09 -- PARIS (Part Three)
10 -- LONDON (Part Three)

the photos in this series were taken by myself, except for those taken by mlle. laine, which are noted.


LONDON
part one

it's been pointed out before, but needs to be said again: london is vast. it is a los angeles linked by rail instead of highways, a world unto itself in a way that only a handful of cities are. our time in london was spent exploring the city from morning until night, walking until our feet hurt and taking breathers on the upper deck of buses as they wound their way through the city.

there were many things i enjoyed about london -- its feeling of completeness, the cultural diversity, the consistent, low-level urbanity spread across hundreds of square miles, never overly intense but always busy, human-scaled and cosy. the place's expense was a real turn-off, though. although we found extremely cheap accommodations, we spent more here just to feed ourselves -- at supermarkets and the cheapest restaurants we could find, no less -- than we spent in total in any other city. everything was prohibitively expensive. everything but books and beer, that is.


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Two words... London Rules.

Great tour. Thanks for posting.
 
Looks like you covered a lot of territory--Brixton, Soho, Arsenal, Paddington, Islington, West End, Bankside, Notting Hill...did I miss anything?

But yes, thank you. London is so effing cool it's almost upsetting.
 
The amber nectar of the antipodean gods, GET. IT. INA. YA.

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;)

Some things are expensive (well let's face it, you'll feel like your arse is being torn out when you travel on CAD or AUD), but many things aren't so...... take beer for example, it's a good 10% cheaper to buy pints in the UK than it is in AUS.

anyhow, looking forward to the rest.
 
Wow, you've really captured the place (but then you always do). Great job anyway!

London is ridiculously expensive, but to get that much "city" in return usually works out to a pretty good deal to me.

I'll be in London myself in about six weeks and looking at your pics is making me VERY anxious.
 
great pics.. *sigh*, i wish i was an Arabian sheikh and able to afford to live in London in style

a friend of mine that's been in London for a few years missed Subway subs when he first moved there, then came across an outlet in Leicester Square.. the cost? 8 pounds for 12" sub! insane
 
Gorgeous pictures, "proper gorge' mate!!"

It amazes me just how diverse the city is, and how nicely the diversity seems to blend there, at least as shown in a number of the pictures.

London's got it on!
 
some wonderful pictures in there; you have great timing for capturing people in their own element without being intrusive. fantasitc stuff.
 
As always, an excellent set of images that capture the mood of the place. Your photos are always outstanding Christopher DeWolf.
 
A fine view of the magnificent Trellick Tower.

Before Prince Charles and the anti-Carbunclists, and the anti-V&A Spiralists that followed, there were the anti-Trellickist. Taste is fickle, whereas good design survives.
 
^ Bad design also tends to survive, but we take your point. ;)
 
Fantastic shots of a fantastic city! Mentioning LA and London in the same sentence is sacrilege.
 
i don't think it's sacrilege; i really do think there are some striking similarities once you get past the surface.

It amazes me just how diverse the city is, and how nicely the diversity seems to blend there, at least as shown in a number of the pictures.

london has really embraced multiculturalism and this is very evident in the abudant representation of different ethnicities, races and cultures in the media and politics. most neighbourhoods seemed pretty mixed, too, although there were some striking moments of homogeneity (such as the daycare in notting hill in which every child but one was not only white, but blond. the odd one out was brown-haired).

that said, paris offered an interesting contrast. on an official level, france has eshewed any type of multiculturalism or affirmative action. as a result, french media and politics is markedly white. that differs from the reality of the streets, which is that paris, except for a handful of extremely wealthy neighbourhoods in the west, is not a very white city at all -- less white than london, to be sure. it also seemed, to my eyes, to have way more mixed-race couples than london. i really didn't see that many couples in london and the ones i did see were mostly single-race. in paris, though, i saw almost every possible combination imaginable.

oh, and while i'm at it, some more london/paris comparisons:

london: friendly, helpful and approachable police.
paris: hostile, intimidating, fearsome police.

in london a muslim woman walked up to some bobbies in soho and asked, in a thick accent, where edgware road (something of an arab high street in central london) was. they laughed, joking that it was "across the city," and then told her precisely how to get there. throughout the city, police casually strolled down high streets.

in the goutte d'or in paris, a neighbourhood almost exclusively populated by poor, recently-arrived immigrants, three unfriendly police officers trolled the streets randomly checking identity papers. on the champs-élysées, submachine gun-toting gendarmes screamed "non non NON!" at a man who attempted to take a photo of them.
 
"paris: hostile, intimidating, fearsome police."

i remember sitting at the base of the eiffel tower once watching a couple of police in a small car drive around like maniacs and basically try to run over the vendors (illiegally, apparently) trying to sell things to tourists, who were diving out of the way!
 
Christopher: Interesting contradiction, isn't it!? The French seem to gravitate to the extremes, while the British seem more comfortable in the middle of the road.
 

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