After dark, London provides many photo opportunities.
Nearly every day, I walk past the London theater (um, sorry, theatre) housing a production of the blockbuster Broadway show, Wicked. It’s after dark, when the show is running, that it truly shines. Literally. The bright-green neon lights of the Apollo Victoria theatre’s marquee illuminates the street and, what I love most, the queue of taxis waiting out front.
A lovely stroll through a massive park on the outskirts of London, with surprising wildlife.
Earlier this fall, as we settled into life in London, I had the opportunity to take several hikes outside London. Thus started a sequence of ten consecutive weekend hikes… so I was determined to get out hiking again today! I chose a walk along the Thames River and through the extensive meadows and woodlands of Richmond Park, just outside London. Little did I know how much wildlife I would find in this extensive parkland, so heavily traveled by so many joggers, dog-walkers, and equestrians.
An extended walk in Chantry Woods with about twenty other Dartmouth alums.
I had my third opportunity to hike, today, in an outing jointly organized by the Dartmouth Club of the United Kingdom and the Tuck alumni club of the United Kingdom, to the Chantry Wood area around Guildford in Surrey. About 20 Dartmouth alums and three dogs came along. The day started cloudy, shifted to hazy, and ended with blue skies, leaving all in a wonderful mood as we settled in for a late Sunday lunch at the Seahorse Pub. As the photo gallery shows, the trees were beginning to show their autumn colors, and the route exposed us to a wide variety of meadows, forests, fallow farm fields, and country lanes.
A beautiful day! [Slideshow]
My second hike in two weekends, just as beautiful as the first.
With one outside-London hike under my belt, at Box Hill last weekend, I was eager to try another. This weekend happens to be the annual Peak Bag, organized by Dartmouth alumni to raise funds in support of student mental health. I registered, thinking I might be an unusual participant (outside the U.S.). By the time I hopped on the train out of London, however, several participants had posted about their completed hikes in New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong. It is indeed a global effort! Read on, to see where we hiked.
A circuitous ramble over and around Box Hill in the Surrey downs.
Four weeks after arriving in London for a year-long sabbatical, I was itching to get outdoors – out in the hills, forests, and meadows, after weeks of city life. Don’t get me wrong – I am truly enjoying the chance to explore London, and to adapt to city living. But I am a country mouse, at heart, and needed to be out where I could climb hills, take in broad vistas, and listen to the wind in the trees. After some online snooping, I settled on this eight-mile circular walk around Box Hill, just an hour’s train journey south of London. Read on!
The beginning of my year-long sabbatical in London.
One of the joys of academic life is the opportunity to take the occasional sabbatical – a semester or a year away from the home university, focused on research without the day-to-day obligations of teaching or committee service. I have been extraordinarily fortunate to spend my past sabbaticals abroad: as a Fulbright Fellow to the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) in 2008-09, and as a Visiting Professor at ETH (Zürich, Switzerland) in 2019-20, leading to some fabulous scientific collaborations and personal/family adventures, which I’ve documented in this blog. Well, here we go again! this time, in London.
I’m just wrapping up a quick trip to London, where I attended the annual UbiComp conference. Such a treat that several of the major conferences are located in Europe this year, while I am as well.
Astonishingly, I have not been to London for more than 40 years! Hard to believe it, but my one and only prior visit was during a family trip the last time I lived in Europe. London has changed a bit since then… but I see they still have the iconic phone booths.
As I strolled by some of the major London landmarks – snapping photos of Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Imperial College London – I was sad that I did not have more time to stop and explore. The conference schedule is packed with interesting talks and networking opportunities, so I’ll just have to return some other time and do the tourist thing. Fortunately, I’ll be back in two weeks for a Dartmouth event and hopefully will have more time to explore during that visit.
David Kotz 