Motherland!!
Aug. 22nd, 2009 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ithikaLet me say that London is awesome.
And also surprisingly inexpensive? I suppose it's because the Pound is so weak at the moment (for the Pound), but things are close to Australian prices when you double what you pay for things. Maybe it's just the area we're staying in, which is in a cute little Hostel right under Westminster Bridge... It's called The Walrus!
It literally is under Westminster Bridge. We can see the trains through the kitchen window, and they aren't far away. We can see the London Eye, too, and as it happens trains are a pretty easy noisy thing to sleep with. The noise of. Yes. That sentence was awful. Being in England aint improved mine Englifh none.
It seems like Old English used 'f' in place of 's'? Can anyone shed any light on this? Some of the carvings in Westminster Abbey were definitely words which today would be spelled with an 's', and the character in its place was certainly an 'f'.
Westminster Abbey is pretty awesome by the way! It's interesting, a lot of English architecture is very ornamented and flowery, yet somehow it manages to avoid ever being over the top. For example, Buckingham Palace! My favourite Palace so far, is extensively and beautifully ornamented, with gilt surfaces everywhere, and floral plasterwork (gilded, of course!) abounds. But it's never too much. Versailles occasionally became gaudy (because of unfortunate colour choices - Punk lime green, what the hell guys srsly), and the palace in Vienna was generally elegant but verged on the side of too much occasionally. Buckingham Palace, however, manages to toe that line with no slip ups.
Maybe I'm pre-disposed to liking it because so much of my own culture is British? I doubt it. But yeah, exquisite palace.
We've been pretty lucky with the weather here - we've been in London for a week now and haven't been rained on once! (It did rain today when we were inside though.) We even experienced a London 'heat wave' that got the locals very excited - for three days the temperature was at about 28-29, and for a few hours in the middle day in the heat wave it actually hit 30!
Bahahaahah.
You should have seen everyone, (maybe not everyone, but a goood portion) stripped down to their underwear or their bathers in Hyde park, sunbathing in the (30 degree!) heat. It's kind of bizarre. Poor people starved of sunlight I guess!
We visited Greenwich too, which is pretty awesome. I kind of travelled, I guess, and was present in 3 days at once - Yesterday, Today and tomorrow. Ah, time. I love it!
In other news, a casual check of the Australian and the UK apple websites has revealed to me that the macbook I was thinking about is (if I am right) nearly $200 cheaper than the same one in Australia would be. Interesting, interesting.
A$ 4,837 versus £2,252.01. Google tells me that the exchange rate is 1AUD = £0.506.
It's probably not worth that saving to go through the trouble of getting one here. Eh!
I thought it was a $1000 difference before and got a bit excited for a minute but I guess I pressed the wrong button, haha.
Bah, 5 minutes to go. Well, I hope you're all doing well!
And also surprisingly inexpensive? I suppose it's because the Pound is so weak at the moment (for the Pound), but things are close to Australian prices when you double what you pay for things. Maybe it's just the area we're staying in, which is in a cute little Hostel right under Westminster Bridge... It's called The Walrus!
It literally is under Westminster Bridge. We can see the trains through the kitchen window, and they aren't far away. We can see the London Eye, too, and as it happens trains are a pretty easy noisy thing to sleep with. The noise of. Yes. That sentence was awful. Being in England aint improved mine Englifh none.
It seems like Old English used 'f' in place of 's'? Can anyone shed any light on this? Some of the carvings in Westminster Abbey were definitely words which today would be spelled with an 's', and the character in its place was certainly an 'f'.
Westminster Abbey is pretty awesome by the way! It's interesting, a lot of English architecture is very ornamented and flowery, yet somehow it manages to avoid ever being over the top. For example, Buckingham Palace! My favourite Palace so far, is extensively and beautifully ornamented, with gilt surfaces everywhere, and floral plasterwork (gilded, of course!) abounds. But it's never too much. Versailles occasionally became gaudy (because of unfortunate colour choices - Punk lime green, what the hell guys srsly), and the palace in Vienna was generally elegant but verged on the side of too much occasionally. Buckingham Palace, however, manages to toe that line with no slip ups.
Maybe I'm pre-disposed to liking it because so much of my own culture is British? I doubt it. But yeah, exquisite palace.
We've been pretty lucky with the weather here - we've been in London for a week now and haven't been rained on once! (It did rain today when we were inside though.) We even experienced a London 'heat wave' that got the locals very excited - for three days the temperature was at about 28-29, and for a few hours in the middle day in the heat wave it actually hit 30!
Bahahaahah.
You should have seen everyone, (maybe not everyone, but a goood portion) stripped down to their underwear or their bathers in Hyde park, sunbathing in the (30 degree!) heat. It's kind of bizarre. Poor people starved of sunlight I guess!
We visited Greenwich too, which is pretty awesome. I kind of travelled, I guess, and was present in 3 days at once - Yesterday, Today and tomorrow. Ah, time. I love it!
In other news, a casual check of the Australian and the UK apple websites has revealed to me that the macbook I was thinking about is (if I am right) nearly $200 cheaper than the same one in Australia would be. Interesting, interesting.
A$ 4,837 versus £2,252.01. Google tells me that the exchange rate is 1AUD = £0.506.
It's probably not worth that saving to go through the trouble of getting one here. Eh!
I thought it was a $1000 difference before and got a bit excited for a minute but I guess I pressed the wrong button, haha.
Bah, 5 minutes to go. Well, I hope you're all doing well!
