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Quick trip to Denmark

A couple of weekends ago Ann and I went on a short trip to Denmark to make a round to friends and family. Apart from the old folk we went on baby patrol and visited a cousin of mine who just had a little Astrid and a couple of high school friends who had Frederik. We also went up to visit my sister who is expecting a family expansion in June.

With my sister, Mogens and Magnus we went for a drive in the beautiful forests south of Ã…rhus. We got to see the lovely early summer of Denmark when the beech trees are the brightest green and the birds are chirping and building nests.

We went to The Deer Park and came across a heard of deers that were more than happy to taste our apples. I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else where deer is so tame that they will eat from your hands. But here they were and we had a flock of deers interested in us.

On the way back to London our flight was slightly delayed and as I was trying to find a chair in the departure hall I stumbled into a blogger. I have been reading Tina – omme i London since I decided to move to London so it was great finally meeting her. She brings her camera everywhere and following her blog was a great way for me to experience London before moving here. She does a great job of showing the lovely colorful side of the city. I love meeting bloggers that I’m reading and it was great putting a face and a voice to Tina 🙂

400 cyclists in tweed

“I must say: very British, indeed!” as my aunt commented. Yesterday was the date for the annual Tweed Run and we went out to enjoy the nice weather and see the spectacle.

We had some problem figuring out the route they were taking but finally found them riding through Kensington Gardens in front of Royal Albert Hall.

It seems like the tweed thing is a whole tongue-in-cheek movement of endorsing gentleman-ship, gin drinking and pipe smoking manifested in the magazine The Chap.

“The Chap takes a wry look at the modern world through the steamed-up monocle of a more refined age, occasionally getting its sock suspenders into a twist at the unspeakable vulgarity of the twenty-first century.”

The people in tweed looked like they were truly enjoying their ride but so were all the people looking and there was quite a number of people out taking pictures of the spectacle.

Easter in Bath

Ann had a some days off for Easter so we decided to go explore the city of Bath 150 km west of London for a couple of days.

Bath is build on a number of geothermal springs which is water from deep beneath the surface being heated and squeezed up through cracks in the limestone underneath Bath where it arrives at the surface at 45 degrees C. Over the course of history different people have used the springs for treatment of all sorts of things.

The picture above shows the layer of history that can be found in Bath. When the Romans occupied England they build a spa around 30-60AD at the site of where the Celt’s before them had worshipped one of their gods. Over 300 years the Romans build a vast complex of bath, spas and temples at the site. After the Romans left the huge complex it got flooded and collapsed and forgotten(!) around the 6th century. You can see the original Roman columns reach about 1Â½ meters above the water. Below that mark things were covered in rubble and protected above that the locals at later centuries took the material for their use. So literally what is below that line is the foundations, plumbing and structure build nearly 2000 years ago that still leads the water in lead pipes and supports the building above. The Roman Baths were not rediscovered until around 1880 when one of the owners of a house on top of the site complained about getting his basement filled with water. Later the columns and museum was build on top of the Roman remains.
The balcony is at the level of the current street level and in the background of the picture is the Bath Abbey. The abbey also have a long history dating back about 12 centuries, this one is the third church at this site that has been in that place since from 1499.

The city of Bath got a renaissance in the 18th and 19th century when it became fashionable again to go to the spas. John Wood senior and junior were great architects of the time and build a number of world class landmarks like senior’s Circus above or junior’s Royal Cresent below.

While we were in Bath the annual Comedy Festival was going on so we got to see the central square being filled up with red people and a great street theatre called Jane Austen’s Bath Time.

We had a great couple of days exploring this UNESCO World Heritage city. For a more comprehensive description of what we got up to go read Ann’s blog of our day 1, day 2, day 3 and see the video she made 🙂

Spring cleaning bikes at the farmers market

Spring is here and it’s time to get the rust and spider webs off the bikes. I’m helping out in a local organisation called Cycletastic that promotes cycling by fixing bicycles, teaching how to navigate the streets, organising workshops etc. There are some really cool people involved and I enjoy taking part in the events put on. I can do the basic maintenance but still got plenty to learn so this way I get to help other people while I learn more about bikes; a true win-win 🙂

This Sunday we set up a booth at the farmers market in Queens Park and held the first “Dr. Bike” event of the year. Here is one of the guys from Cycle Training UK helping me out with a kids bike.

We had Ann to help manage the queue and with six fixers we had our hands on 41 bikes in four hours. Busy times but it was great to help people get their bikes back on the road.

The cycling culture in London is still not that widespread but there are a lot of initiatives from the city and from non-profit outfits like the Cycletastic, Cycle Training UK and London Cycling Campaign. The people I meet from these organisations are really passionate about getting people to bike and it is great to see the grass-root spirit involved.

The Top London Travel Blogs

The travel agency LastMinute.com has started publishing a monthly top 50 list of travel and lifestyle blogs in London/UK. To kick that off they organized an event they called Oh You Lucky Bloggers at Planet Hollywood. It’s not like Ann or I has made it into the list but it’s always fun to get out and meet other bloggers. The event was great, mingling with the cool crowd of London blogosphere.

I’m not sure how the list is compiled but there are some really cool blogs on it – go have a look yourself.

There is a couple of my favorite London blogs that hasn’t made the list so I figured I’d give them props here:

IanVisits – Ian is constantly on top of what’s going on under and over ground in London events.
London Cyclist – Andreas is really busy creating resources for the biking crowd in London
Ghost signs – Not exclusively a London site but very interesting nonetheless with old painted signs on house.
From The Upper Deck – Another quirky blog where Przemek drives around on the double deckers of London and takes pictures out the window as London life goes by below him.
Georgian London – excitingly writings about life in London in the 18th century
Scandinaivian Kitchen – for everything homely on London

Justice or peace?

Last night we went to a screening of the movie Storm (DK: Hannahs Valg) which tells the fictional story of a trial at the tribunal in The Hague and how the prosecutors struggle to ensure evidence, witnesses and at the same time make political bargains with the local government of the Balkans.

The conflict of the Balkans is not easy to understand – yet I think it is important that we try. This is a war that happened in our lifetime, right in the middle of Europe and with horrible war crimes of ethnic cleansing, genocide and rape camps.

I found the movie very interesting and it displays some of the dilemmas of trying to achieve justice for the atrocities while trying to rebuild the stability of the region and what one persons sacrifice mean in a bigger political game.

After the movie there was a panel debate with the former diplomat Charles Crawford, journalist Rajeshree Sisodia, Elena Wasylem from a rape victim help group and Lisa Gormley from Amnesty International. They all had some interesting inputs to the different themes of the film and put it into context. One of the things that they mentioned in the debate afterwards was that the bargaining and some of the actions of the barristers were quite unrealistic.

The film is a great example of European collaboration as it was created with funding from three countries and cast from at least eight.

Check out Ann’s blog post about the night as well 🙂

Update March 29th 2010: Charles Crawford wrote a nice piece on the film and the debate afterwards.

St Patrick's Parade in Willesden Green

We live in the borough of Brent which is the most ethnic diverse in England and also the place with most Irish people in London. Wednesday last week was the real St. Patrick’s day which meant they put on a parade right down the street from us.

Around 6000 people came out and celebrated everything Green, Guinness and Irish and it was quite a show. It was great to see not just the Irish but everyone celebrating. Like these kids which looks anything but Irish playing the BodhrÃ¡n.

I also enjoyed the fact that the lineup before the actual parade was in front of the local mosque. Here with a truck with the title of an Irish rebel song called “Follow me up to Carlow” which is a celebration of an Irish victory over a 3000 men English army.

Peter Marshall the photographer was also in Willesden Green and as a lot more photos from the event.

Chalk Farm Tube Station

The tube station at Chalk Farm is my favorite of the ones I have come across in London. It’s a big red triangular building on the corner of Adelaide Rd and Haverstock Hill.

It was opened on June 22nd 1907 and like a number of other stations built at that time it has ox-blood red glazed terracotta blocks on the front to provide it’s very bold unique look.

Have a look at other people’s pictures of the station on Flickr.