{"id":1234,"date":"2009-12-29T14:54:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T14:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/29\/repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009-loving-london\/"},"modified":"2014-03-15T20:50:39","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T20:50:39","slug":"repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009-loving-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/29\/repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009-loving-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Repost – Best of Don’t Gel 2009: Loving London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Waterlloo<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

That old rascal <\/span>Samuel Johnson<\/a> told us that when we were <\/span> tired of London, we'd be tired of life<\/a>
\n I know it's summer when any city is inviting but this week is cool and
\nbright and breezy and London is full of British school groups and kids
\nfrom everywhere else too, and we have an apartment right in the middle
\nof Covent Garden (well NOT the market, God forbid, just the
\nneighborhood) and our older son and his new wife are only 40 minutes
\naway and we have friends here, too.  So how could we be tired?<\/p>\n

What you see here is the view from <\/span>Waterloo Bridge <\/a> (and yes that's St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.)  This morning I went out and walked all along the <\/a>, over where the trees are, then crossed a bridge just out of view on the right and returned via South Bank,
\nLondon's wonderful (relatively) new arts and museum area.<\/a>  My entire
\nwalk was around three miles and I'm realizing that it's much easier to
\ndo the walking when there are new things to look at, not just the old
\nneighborhood or, as lovely as it is, Rock Creek Park. <\/p>\n

\n\"Kids<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe wonder of a great city is that it's always changing, that even the most
\ntrivial journey is full of surprises.  On my way home tonight I came
\nacross a group of teenagers – one of dozens of groups we've been seeing
\never since we got here.  The reason they're all sitting on the sidewalk
\nis that they're exchanging addresses and spelling them out – different
\nnationalities, different spelling.  Kind of an EU photo.<\/p>\n

\nOf course there's lots else going on here.  Huge waves of immigration, the
\nwars in Iraq and Afghanistan, what looks to me to be an appalling
\namount of youthful alcohol consumption and unemployment all take their toll.  There's something about the
\nplace despite those issues though.  The day after the2005 subway bombing <\/a>that killed 52 people, Londoners got back on the train and went to work.  They did that all during the Blitz as much of the rest of the world watched them face down Hitler almost alone.<\/p>\n

\n\"London<\/a><\/p>\n

Cities are supposed to change.  That's what makes them exciting.  Even so,
\nLondon has seen more than its share: waves of immigration that have
\ntransformed it, an early history of wars and fires and plagues,
\ncontemporary royal scandals and of course the "troubles" between
\nBelfast and the rest of Ireland and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  
\nAfter all, who would have believed before it arrived to help celebrate
\nthe Millennium, that there would be a ferris wheel right in the center
\nof town?  They call it the <\/span>London Eye<\/a> to
\nmake it sound fancy but it's still a ferris wheel, here in same town
\nthat has a real live queen living in a real live palace?  It's pretty
\namazing.<\/p>\n

I'm
\nthinking that while we're here I can try to get past some of what I've
\nwritten here and learn a bit of what it's like to truly live
\nhere.  It's got to be different from wandering around with no need to
\nbe on time or face the traffic or crowded mass transit and infinite
\nnumbers of tourists and, incidentally, deal with what appears to be an
\nenormous amount of alcohol consumption – especially by men.  I'm hoping
\nto keep you posted as I make my way.  I hope you'll come along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That old rascal Samuel Johnson told us that when we were tired of London, we'd be tired of life  I know it's summer when any city is inviting but this week is cool and bright and breezy and London is full of British school groups and kids from everywhere else too, and we have an … Continue reading Repost – Best of Don’t Gel 2009: Loving London<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,27,42,7,9,78,51,52],"tags":[305,306,307,302,304,301,303],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-culture","category-current-affairs","category-family","category-life","category-politics","category-travel","category-webtech","category-weblogs","tag-big-ben","tag-blitz","tag-churchill","tag-london-eye","tag-south-bank","tag-travel-london","tag-waterloo-bridge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-jU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1900,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}