Last night in London

Today is Thanksgiving and my last night in London.



Yesterday I went to visit the newspaper the Telegraph. It was nice seeing how this large paper deals with graphics and online convergence. Overall though, I was given the feeling that papers in the UK do not take graphics as serious as the US or Spain does. After my visit I joined a graphics artist for a couple pints.

Through contacts at the Telegraph, today I went and met with a multimedia developer at the Guardian. Again a very educational visit that I enjoyed very much.

After my visit with the Guardian I just started walking around and saw the top of what I thought was St. Pauls Cathedral. I really wanted to see that cause I remember hearing so much about it during Germany's bombings of London in WW2.

I also wanted to see St. Pauls Cathedral because it was named after my dad, who as everyone knows, is quiet the Saint! Pretty cool that they knew he was going to be born and be a saint all those years ago.

Anyhow, St. Pauls Cathedral was originally built around 1100 AD. It was burned during around 1500 and was rebuilt with the dome around 1600. It is an amazing building. During the German bombings in 1943 everyone in the city worried about it. After hours and hours of bombings one evening the people of London were sure the Cathedral had been destroyed. They came out from the shelters and walked to the streets only to see that almost everything around it was burning and destroyed, but St. Pauls was undamaged. Odd, a 500 pound bomb actually hit the roof and went through into the Cathedral only to not detonate. You could actually see where the hole was.

There is also those famous photos of everything around London burning except for St. Pauls Cathedral.

I took photos when I could, but since it is an active place of worship, it is considered rude to take photos in the Cathedral. So I really only have exterior photos.

I am trying to upload my photos now but I have to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner and the internet connection is running very slowly right now. Hard to say when I can upload them.

Heading to Ireland tomorrow morning with Renee. Flying into Dublin and will stay there for a night. Saturday we should head west on bus or train to Galway for two nights. Flying back to London Monday from Shannon, Ireland. Then I catch the underground to Europe... most likely... or flight to Amsterdam. We shall see.

I have lots of thoughts about it being my last day in London but am out of time. I will write more later in this post.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. I am thinking of my family and friends and look forward to seeing all of you again. Hope your holidays find you well.

Chris