Günter in London

Have you already wondered why I didn't post a blog this weekend? Günter arrived on Friday and I'm busy showing him "my" London.

It all started with a pint of ale in a pub on the way home on Friday. On Saturday we walked along the canals of the Eastend and looked over the fence of the Olympia 2012 building site.

On Sunday we went to the Colombia flower market and met with my former course mate Rose. Afterwards we went to a food hall in Brick Lane and had Ethiopian and Sri Lankan food.

Günter was very keen on taking a lot of pictures in the City and along the Thames at Tower Bridge. And that's where we took this picture of us.

Today we're taking the tube to Maida Vale, fetching the results of the exam...

Size matters

The sculptors of these two objects have something in common. In the public opinion they were too generous with the boy's best part and gave it a size that was able to annoy their contemporaries.

Both, Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein, had to cut the organs down to size. Eric Gill's sculpture Prospero and Ariel (left) can be seen at the Broadcasting House; Jacob Epstein's sculpture Day (below) at Broadway House.

I publish these pictures today as I observed a group of grown-up (sic!) Italian tourists today taking pictures at the banks of the Thames. One guy laid down on the wall at the river bank and another took a picture of him arranging the Gherkin accordingly.

Reminds me of my first holiday with Italians in Ireland, when the boys draw a huge penis into the sand and pictured themselves with it. Today my prejudices of Italian machos have again been confirmed.

Bangers and Mash

I've always liked eating in pubs when in Britain, but during the past decades the quality of pub food went down. More and more pubs are in the hands of chains, offering the same boring menu and use convenient food delivered to them.

Some days ago I re-discovered pub food at lunchtime again. I had a wonderful steak and ale pie in St Stephen's Tavern close to Houses of Parliament, enjoyed this plate of bangers and mash in The Angel and had another bangers and mash in The Duke of Wellington yesterday before heading to a concert of the Soweto Gospel Choir in Cadogan Hall in Chelsea.

Bangers and mash are a typical English dish consisting of sausages, mashed potatoes and gravy. Wikipedia says: "The term bangers is attributed to the fact that sausages, particularly the kind made during World War II under rationing, can explode under high heat if not cooked carefully. Modern sausages do not have this attribute."

Will continue to favour vegetarian dishes, always with a pint of good ale, again after these intense meat feasts over the last few days.

Boris' bikes

This is now a common sight in the city of London. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, has initiated the Barclays Cycle Hire, a self-service public bicycle scheme for short journeys in central London.

The aim is to make London a cycle-friendly city and my impression is that it's on a good way. Thousands of people have already signed up and you see quite a few bikes on the move.

There are 400 docking statins throughout the city with 6,000 bikes. You just have to sign up as a member and pay 3 Pounds. For 45 Pounds you can use the bikes every day of the year. Or you pay as you go. Journeys up to an hour cost 1 Pounds. The first 30minutes of every journey are free.

I haven't signed up yet as the press mentioned some teething problems of the scheme. So it might happen that you don't lock your returned bike properly and get charged for late return with 150 Pounds. Furthermore they had problems with their webpage. And, last but not least, I'm not sure if I'd survive the traffic in London.

From the inside

Today you can glimpse into the flat I'm staying in. It's the ideal place for me and to plan my next excursion into town. Pictured are the hall, the living room and my bedroom. It's a former council flat in which Tony's grandfather lived. Tony did the complete renovation of the flat himself. Very impressive, especially when you consider how neatly everything is done.

During the last days I met two people for a coffee or a pint. The first one is Sandra, sister of Bridget I went to see in Nottinghamshire recently. She's extremely well informed about London and gave me many valuable tips. She also animated me to join a hiking tour to Dover at the end of August. And she recommended a hiking tour I could do with Günter during his two-week long visit from Friday onwards.

The second is Thomas, whom I met at university in Münster. He has lived in London for nearly ten years now and also gave me some tips. We might meet again with his wife and Günter as he's going to take part in a 10 kilometer race in Victoria Park.

A flat with a view

I’m a East Ender now. Yesterday I moved into Tony’s flat and already feel at home. For most of the time I’ll be in this flat on my own with occasional visits of Tony. We’ve already agreed upon a common visit to one of the pubs close by.

The flat is very spacious and so is my room. It’s very quiet so far and very close to Victoria Park. Furthermore, the area is much nicer to live in than many people from the West of London think and would tell you.

A nice bonus is that we have a great view onto the City with the Gherkin. It's wonderful to see how the skyscrapers light up as the sun goes down.

Goodbye Kilburn

Alex's flat in Kilburn. It's the first flat from the left in the first floor

Today I'm moving out of Alex's flat and say goodbye to Kilburn. I'm heading for the East End today where Tony, a friend of our friend Barbara, has offered me to stay in his flat.

I'm very much looking forward to my third home during my sabbatical and exploring the city from the opposite direction.

By the way, just to make you envious, look at the blue sky. Even if the day starts with some showers like yesterday, so far it has always cleared up before noon. That's the way I got to know England and it's even better here in the Southeast.