Distractions, reflections

In my day job, I recommend in-person interviews, because they produce a richness of understanding not possible over the telephone.  On this engagement, we decided to visit interviewees in Windsor as a day trip.  On a prior gig in Detroit, I had flown to Windsor and driven across the border.  For this day trip, the travel by Via Rail was practical. I arrived at the platform at Union Station with 5 minutes to spare.  Nancy was already there, and Stephen arrived one minute before the train departed.

With a schedule to pick up the train from Oshawa through Toronto to Windsor, Stephen got caught in a traffic at the shift change at the General Motors plant.  Having missed the Via Rail train, he was told that he could catch the later GO Train from Oshawa to Windsor, and arrive at Union Station before the train left.  The voyage outbound from Toronto was considerably less stressful.

I prefer travelling by train over flying.  The stress is lower.  It’s too bad rail travel isn’t a practical alternative to most destinations.

The rail route through southern Ontario sees a lot of farm land.

Highway 401 is normally considered the direct freeway from Toronto to Windsor. The original Highway 2 ran through small towns north of Highway 401.  Approaching Windsor, Highway 2 lost its official designation in 1998.

Like many travellers, I’ve taken the Heathrow Express from the airport to Paddington Station in central London.  However, Paddington is in the north side of London, and I was visiting on the south side.  Starting out from Purley Station, I decided to experiment with another route.

I took the train north towards Victoria Station.

The northbound rail tracks pass over some east-west lines.

The route goes by a power station.

Approaching Victoria Station, tracks began to converge.

For a quiet family Sunday, Greg and Scott suggested seeing the countryside nearby.  I’m used to touring the urbanized London, but the Green Belt near the southern suburbs has a completely different feel.  We drove over to Happy Valley Park in Croydon.

In the parking lot, we encountered some urban art:  a burned out car.  This vandalism was probably was the work of some juveniles.  We wondered why the chassis hadn’t been taken away, already.

Down the road, we walked into Happy Valley Park.  The park was quiet, and we encountered a few other families on the way.

On the way, Jasper stopped to check out some interesting smells.

Purley is a suburb south of London.  Since Scott and Greg hosted me at their home, I offered to cook dinner for them.  To go shopping for supplies, Scott accompanied me, and we walked over to the bus stop.

Greg thought the best shopping would be in Croydon.  The bus took a route direct to the city centre, and then drove around some one way streets before dropping us off just north of the Croydon Flyover.

I waited on the street while Scott stopped in a store to buy a few household supplies.

A few blocks north, we came to a fork in the road at the entry to the Surrey Street Market.

This market has a history serving the neighbourhood going back centuries.

To see the other Tate Museum in London, I took the tube down to the Southwark tube station.  I observed the Blackfriars station as closed, when I walked north.  Approaching the former Bankside Power Station from the south side, the Tate Modern is an imposing building.

Walking around to the west side of the building, I could see the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance.

From the west side, the entry of to the Tate Modern is down a long ramp.

The ramp continues inside the building into the Turbine Hall.

The galleries are on the upper floors.  I went up to Level 3, and saw some red benches with display terminals.

After I had spent a few hours at the Tate Britain, Ellen arrived in town, and we went for lunch.  She suggested an art show a little distance away, so we hopped on the Tube to South Kensington station.   As we tried to get oriented, we found ourselves outside the Henry Cole Wing of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Looking at our maps, the Science Museum seemed to be the wrong direction.

We turned the direction we thought was north, up Exhibition Road, finding another wing of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Since I have a Brompton bicycle, I was intrigued to turn down Brompton Square.  This neighbourhood isn’t a likely one for bicycle factory.