Virtual Vicarious Vacation Friday: London

I'm on the final wave of that book I was working on earlier in the summer (final until my agent gets ahold of it). In this phase, I read it out loud. That helps me spot awkward constructions, missing words, redundant words, etc. It also helps me make sure my dialogue works. It's a pretty time-consuming process to read an entire novel out loud, but what I'm finding with this book is that I want to keep going. I didn't even take that nap I promised myself yesterday because I got caught up in the story. I consider that to be a good sign.

I think I may have to make a bookstore run today because Borders sent me another coupon (curse them!) and I've discovered another book I really want to read. Plus, there are a couple of grocery items I need, and I want to avoid leaving the house tomorrow. This is the first entirely free Saturday I've had in ages, and my next couple of weekends will be busy, as next weekend I've got a meeting and the weekend after that I'll be in New York. I hope I'll be done with the book re-read today, so I can just relax this weekend. Well, there will likely be some research-related reading, and I may need to start the viewing of some of my mood-setting movies, as the start date for working on the book of the misty idea is growing closer.

And now, it's Friday, so it's Virtual Vicarious Vacation day, and we're off to London. This is that same trip from October 2000 (I took something like nine rolls of film, so there were a lot of pictures, considering I was only there for about 4 days). I have better London pictures from my subsequent trip, when I spent a lot of time in London, as I was staying with friends who lived on the outskirts, but we'll start with these major landmarks.

First, Westminster Abbey. I do have some shots from later in the day when the sun came out, but I like the foggy look, too (and they're on a different CD, and I'm not particularly compelled to dig it up). This was right after I got off the bus from Oxford in the morning, then after wandering around, I came back for the Evensong service, so I was inside when the sun came out, and that brought all the stained glass to life. Very pretty. My Tourist Tip: The Abbey is closed on Sundays for tours because it does function as a church, but you can attend services there, so you can still go in. You don't get the full tour, but you do have to go through much of the church to get to the seating area, so you still see a lot, and the sound of the choir is breathtaking, so I thought it was the best way to see it -- in use for its purpose, not as just another tourist site.



Then there's Big Ben. You can't go to London without taking a picture of that.



And then St. Paul's. It was hard getting a good shot because it's so big you need some distance, but the buildings surrounding it are all crammed in pretty close. It just about required standing in the middle of a street to get a good picture, but it was mid-day on a Sunday, so that part of town was pretty deserted. I think I have some pictures on another CD (this was the end of a roll) of all the pigeons around the cathedral, and I will confess that I went around singing "Feed the Birds" for a while.



I may play photo CD roulette next week and just grab one out of the box to see where we'll go next time.