Astrid in London

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have managed to update my Blog, but you know how it is...
So meanwhile I had some visitors from Germany here. Jan and Mert came from Cologne for one weekend and then there was Daniel from Cologne as well. He was here with his Girlfriend. But while she wanted to see the Phantom of the Opera, he decided to meet me and we went to the Hayward Gallery to see the Dan Flavin Installations, which I enjoyed a lot. Back then I didn't really take any pictures, but this time I did. Astrid came from Bonn for the weekend and here is what we did:
Day one was at Brick Lane and the Old Spitalfields Market.
Astrid's plan was to buy some presents for some upcoming birthdays and other occasions...There was some nice stuff and it was hard to convince her of not buying too many things for herself (well that was what she asked me to do in the first place)
Later that day we went to the British Museum. For some reason we did get to the Museum pretty late and some wings already closed upon our arrival. Anyway, we saw what people come to see at the British Museum: The Rosetta Stone (and of course the Toilets and the coffee place). But what is the Rosetta Stone? Well, it is a stone with writing on it in two languages. These two languages are Egyptian and Greek, and three scripts have been used, i.e. hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. But why is it in three different scripts you might ask yourself. The Rosetta Stone was written in three different scripts because when it was written, there were three scripts being used in Egypt..."The more you know"
You can see me trying to steel the Rosetta Stone on the third picture in the museum.















Day two was when we went first went to Battersea Park with Alex. It was extremely sunny and everybody cheered up. If you take a close look I think you can see a rainbow making his way from behind these two happy faces!
So here we are at the Battersea Park. After that we went to the Tate Britain on the other side of the river. Unfortunately they closed 15 minutes after we got there. But from our British Museum experience Astrid and me were very familiar with the shooing out of the gallery by a huge number of employees. But take a look at the park it was really beautiful!
























This is already day three. Astrid, Alex and me went to the Columbia Flower Market. It was very colourful and extremely packed. If you want to buy flowers on a Sunday you should definitely come here! Variety is great and prices are unbeatably low. If you are not into shopping for flowers you may enjoy all these little boutiques and art galleries situated along and around the market. You might also just buy a loaf of crusty dark rye bread...almost like Germany!

































At this point Astrid is already heading back home. We had such a great time! Whatever is not on the pictures was great too: Extended breakfast sessions, great dinner at home with some friends, Camden Market and so on, and so on...

On the last two pictures you can see unattended luggage in the tube and us pretty blurred due to the enormous speed of the London Underground, just as they claim: Nothing beats the tube!