Amsterdam and London

The last part of the trip was done a bit messily and in a hurry. We raced up north through Belgium and Netherlands, to Amsterdam, and then down south again to Calais (to cross the English channel), but skipped Brussels which was on the itenary, due to lack of time. Then across the 'Chunnel' and a day's bus tour in London, and some time in the evening in the city and then caught the flight the next day.


Near Amsterdam we spent some time at Madurodam, which is like a miniature depiction of Netherlands. It has lots of buildings, Schiphol Airport, bridges, highways, train systems etc, all in miniature. It didn't get me excited, but a lot of other people enjoyed it. We visited a cheese and clog (wooden shoe) making farm which was moderately interesting. And then the Gassan diamond factory which was also moderately interesting :-). We did a cruise on the canals and saw lots of the architecture of the city. The main motif is very much exposed brick walls with flat facades. They cycle a lot in the Netherlands and there were lots of cycling paths int the city, besides the walking paths, and the canals, and roads which leaves relatively litle space for buildings :-).

London on bus was quite cool, we got to see a bunch of interesting stuff from the outside: Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, Westminster, Bush House (BBC Headquarters), Tower of London, London Eye, Albert Hall, Kensington Gardens.. We stayed in the new part of London called the Docklands (Canary Wharf). This is a very American style gleaming steel-and-glass highrise place. Its quite cool by itself, but the setting is on the river Thames (the old Wharf area), and that makes the place a lot cooler. We went to the Canary Wharf underground station to go spend some time in the city in the evening. It was an amazing scene there at the tube station. There were these hundreds of men and women all working in the financial and tech offices in the area, all attired very similiarly, especially the men, streaming out of the offices and into the underground station to go home. It was a surreal sight, and I think something that you would see only in Manhattan other than London. I conjured up a vision in my mind of the kind of life these people would be living and felt a little envious (and nostalgic for what I'd left behind in the US)..
I also had an 'aha' moment there at Canary Wharf. There was a scrolling stock ticker, and along with a bunch of the familiar names (including Juniper, which is not doing so well), there was Cognizant Technology Solutions, the Indian outsourcing firm. It struck home that Indian multinationals are now firmly part of the global scene and here to stay.



Below are photos of two impressive London monuments: the Tower of London (a World Heritage site) and the graceful Westminster. Photo albums of our Netherlands and London pics are on Yahoo.