I don’t remember seeing so many bicyclists on London’s streets. With no noticeable bike lanes to guide them, they are brave souls. My driver mentioned that the mayor, who he referred to as “Red Ken”, was planning on offering thousands of bikes for rent for short trips around London. Another noticeable difference since my last visit about a year ago is the amount of construction. Streets are being excavated, sidewalks replaced and buildings erected all over London.
It was a busy day at Prestat, a small chocolate shop tucked away in the Princess Arcade near Piccadilly Circus. Although I had done my chocolate shopping the day before, I couldn’t help picking up a small something for Annabel.
I’m in Munich for a conference which has kept me inside the Bayerischer Hof for most of the week. When I got the chance to walk around today I headed straight for the Viktualienmarkt for a bratwurst and pretzel. I ate my sausage with a crowd watching rapier wielding dancers, part of Munich’s Fasching (Carnival) festivities. All around town stages and decorations, including a giant clown across the city gate, are being erected. Unfortunately I’ll miss the Dance of the Market Women at the Viktualienmarkt on Shrove Tuesday.
The San Francisco street scene in the mural below is set at the corner of Washington and Montgomery. We wanted to know what it looked like today so we pulled up the intersection on Street View in Google Maps. (We love using Google Earth and Google Maps to explore the world from home.) Today it’s where you’ll find the Transamerica Pyramid, near Chinatown and North Beach. There are several pre-war buildings in the neighborhood, but none of them are identifiable in the mural. Maybe the neighborhood has changed, or maybe the artist simply added street names to make it feel more real. It’s worth taking a look at the large version of the mural to see some of the details like the car accident, robbery, and the newspaper headline about John Dillinger.
