Recently in London Category

Over 300 people from the UK Internet community got together to mark the end of IPv4 at the London Transport Museum and promote the adoption of IPv6.

Ed Vaizey MP did an introductory speech followed by an review of IPv4 by Prof Peter Kirstein (UCL) and IPv6 by Simon McCalla (Nominet). After a short panel debate on IPv6 readiness there was a mock handover of 185/8 from IANA to RIPE NCC. Finally, Gary Feldman performed his RIPE55 song "The day the routers died" (a parody of American Pie).

I took a few photos and some video. The Internet survived unharmed (although I did turn it off at one point, sorry if you were using it at the time).

The photos from my trip to London are on Flickr in the May 2010: London collection. There's a separate set of Elephant Parade London 2010 photos.

I got some breakfast from Pret a Manger (there are definitely some French accents missing from that name...) and then visited the Bank of England Museum, which is only open on banking days and is as boring as it sounds.

A long trip on the DLR later and I arrived at the Prime Meridian Line in Greenwich, which has moved since they decided where to put it.

I had another late lunch at Tate Britain before looking at the art on display there. Much better than Tate Modern but I didn't get many photos because taking photos indoors without the flash on is almost impossible with my camera.

Spent a couple of hours in Selfridges looking for something interesting before leaving with two Elephant Parade elephants.

After getting some breakfast from Gail's I walked past BBC Television Centre then went down Charing Cross Road stopping at Soho Square and Leicester Square (which happened to be closed this week for filming) before heading to Hampstead Heath. Eventually I reached the top of Parliament Hill before heading south for Tate Modern.

I had a late lunch of haddock and chips before wandering around wondering why almost anything qualifies as "art". There was a massive traffic jam of taxis outside when I left. A quick wander around the maze that is Harrods looking at things over-priced in the thousands of pounds, before heading home for dinner.

Over two years since I last visited London, I boarded two trains with minutes to spare each time (after trying to get onto the wrong platform at Waverley) and arrived mid afternoon. I'm staying with a couple of friends who have space for me to sleep on a very large bean bag.

I had a long wait before my flight to Edinburgh so I changed my remaining USD back into GBP and read my book for a few hours. The flight was then delayed another 45 minutes while they removed the luggage of someone who had failed to show up for their connecting flight. By this time it really felt like 4am and I was struggling to stay awake.

The flight arrived at 12:40pm and my bag appeared in time for me to catch the 1:20pm bus to Inverkeithing and then the next bus a few minutes later to Dalgety Bay, arriving home just after 2pm.

I got up early again and took another shuttle to LAX which took an hour, then another hour to get checked in and eat breakfast (an egg panini). Over an hour later the plane was ready for boarding and departed at 2pm. Some turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean and another two meals later, I arrived early at Heathrow around 7:40am. It's now tomorrow.

With my overfilled suitcase ready, I woke up too early just after 6am and left to get the bus, arriving just in time to see the next bus leave without me at 8am. I got to EDI at 9am and waited for my flight with my $600 in monopoly money (it's just identically sized bits of paper with ink on it).

Arriving at LHR at noon I had some over-priced fish and chips for lunch then tried to miss caught my flight to SFO with plenty of time to spare (it doesn't help that they tell you there's a lack of toilets far far away from the gate). There was less leg room in Economy on this United flight than the BMI flight from Edinburgh. They make you walk from the front of the plane through First Class so you can see what you're missing. Annoyingly we flew over Edinburgh on the way there... Two snack meals later and I'm in San Francisco just before 5pm.

After getting through Homeland Security and collecting my suitcase (which made it all the way here intact), I found my way outside to be greeted by clear skies and the sun directly facing me. The shuttle driver managed to avoid crashing into the highway barrier and then another car in the opposite lane long enough to get me to my hotel. There are far too many streets at 45 degree angles here...

I checked into my room at 7pm, Thomas and Jon appeared two minutes later. We went to Lefty O'Doul's just around the block from the hotel. About an hour later Jeff and his friend Koen arrived, then Colin and Alex later. We stayed until closing time (2am) and I tried to sleep through the heat, jet lag and the continuous noise of the air conditioning from the building opposite.

I have finally finished uploading to Flickr around 450 of the 750+ photos I took while in London. They're organised into sets by day with subsets of those for particular places. These are then all part of the March 2008: London collection.

Using an Oyster card worked out cheaper than an equivalent 3-day travelcard.

I got up at 7:30am and managed to repack my suitcase and check out in time to reach Earl's Court for 9am. The King's Cross St. Pancras tube station was announced as closed due to overcrowing - fortunately it opened up again quickly and I managed to get on the third Piccadilly line train (the first two were too crowded and I couldn't get on while holding a suitcase). I reached the train to Waverley 15 minutes before it was due to leave and finished reading the book I brought and read on the way down.

Eventually it arrived at Edinburgh early in plenty of time to catch the train to Dalgety Bay where I arrived just after 3pm. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain and there was no 1524 bus on the route I needed, so I had to wait at the stop for 45 minutes or get myself and the suitcase soaking wet trying to walk home. I got back just after 4pm and started waiting for ASDA to deliver food.