So I got out on Sunday this weekend as well, and rode from High Wycombe to Aylesbury. It was a good ride! Proper English weather (rained like piss all day.)
Took a few pictures as well.
Quite nice that most of the National Rail lines here don’t care at all if you bring a bike aboard. It makes it so easy to get out of London and enjoy!
This past Saturday we went on a bit of a hike around Surrey. It was quite fun! We had a small crew from work and a few friends from outside work. Hop on a train from Victoria station to Holmwood, Dorking and walk to Gomshall, Surrey, and train back from there. ’twas a mighty good time. I’ve drawn a quick map of the area (apologies, but I’ve become completely obsessed with drawing maps of where I’ve been!)
Check out a few photos, if ya like.
This hike is out of an excellent book, Time Out Country Walks near London, which I strongly recommend for anyone living in or around London!
Fortunately for me I’m completely nuts!
So I’ve been in London (yes the actual City of London) for the past week and a half for work, and part of my adventure was to bring my bicycle with in order to try to ride around London and not get run over by any buses. The weather finally held (and I got my courage up) so I went for a ride. Needless to say, I didn’t die (else this bit of writing would be quite magical, no?)
It’s a bit different riding here. Shit, I’d take downtown Chicago at rush hour any day for a leisurely ride compared to here! Here I am, riding on the opposite sided of the road (which means that right turns are the difficult ones, not left turns!), none of the roads run in a straight line and always seem to be taking me away from the direction I’d like to be going, the roads are narrow and all under some sort of construction, the cabs are equally as crazy as Chicago cabs, and oh yeah — the cyclists here are completely insane as well…it makes for one heck of a ride!
However most importantly, I didn’t get eaten by a big red London bus. Hooray!
I took a few pictures off Blackfriar’s bridge before the sun went down. Mostly just to prove that I was here. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out more now that the weather isn’t total crap.
Cycling in London == scary. However I did find some interesting resources on TFL for cyclists, and I’ve sent off for some maps. We’ll see how good they are!
If you’re a driver in London and were out today, thank you for not hitting me :)
So as a part of me taking a crazy vacation, I made it to Paris (for a whopping 24 hours) with one goal: The Tour de France!
Photos to make anyone who wasn’t there jealous:
Wowzers, what a great time! Was intending to write about each day individually, but that’s certainly out of the question now. GUADEC was a great experience and I’m hooked on the community! A big thanks to everyone who helped put GUADEC ‘07 together.
My favorite bits:
Many thanks to all the folks who made going out and drinking absolutely hilarious, including Gabriel, Aaron, Michael, Aiden, Rodney, Toms, any anyone else I’ve missed!
This is mostly to brag to my siblings, if they haven’t heard yet…
I will be taking the Eurostar train from London on the 28th down to Paris, France. Will stay the night, and then the next morning get up to watch the final stage of the Tour de France. How cool is that?!
Any of my fellow free software hackers know a decent cheap place to stay a night in/around Paris?
