My favorite mode of public transportation in London is taking the bus – I like the tube fine, but when on a bus one can look outside and watch the world pass by … best place for that are of course the front seats on the upper floor, if one is lucky enough to snag one of them … .
… you might as well pause to take a photo first. Somewhat unbelievably: no filter.
After a somewhat choppy second flight, I have made it safely to London (see photo of the rain we flew into above). Have managed to register, drop postcard postbox off, and run into lovely people whom I then had yummy Mexican food with. :-)
Programming starts (for me) with a social event tomorrow morning, an academics mix-and-mingle before the academic track kicks off. I have brought the ipad mini and its keyboard, which have served me well at two conferences already, and expect to be taking plenty of notes (not only for myself, but also for the conference report I shall be writing for a German academic journal). So, better catch some sleep now … I have a feeling it’s going to be a long five days!
This is the second of the photos that I took of this perspective in the Abbey on top of Le Mont Saint Michel that I really like – the first one is “Out of the Rain” I. I think this photo works best when it is seen in a bigger size, so click on it to see it in a larger version. (I think I will get a printed version of it, too, to hang somewhere – I’ve not done that with one of my photos in a long time, but I think this one would look nice on a wall … .
Today I went to Le Mont Saint Michel, where it sure rained a lot. Pretty much all my umbrella managed to protect from the rain was my camera (which was the important thing, really) – from the shoulders down I ended up quite wet (I carried my camera on my shoulder, right under the umbrella, when not in use – and have an accidental photo or two of my chin to prove it, too :-)). The locals have taught me that weather in Normandy can be summed up as “Apres la pluie … encore la pluie”. Which, yes, I can see that. (My trousers are still wet – and drying in the shower.)
Somewhere in that grey haze lies the rest of France.
Out of the rain
The Rainy Day
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
I found the contrast between the rain drops and their texture effect in the foreground and the blue sky and clouds in the distance intriguing, so I chose this shot over the more grey-in-grey rain photos, albeit the rain was heavier in those moments. You win some, you lose some.