very simple

Just a few additional pics from my trip to Plymouth for Thanksgiving (I’ve already featured the rock earlier). Featuring Plymouth bay, the fake Mayflower, and thanksgiving kitsch as only the town where the pilgrims landed can do.

I’m sitting at the providence train station waiting for my train back to New York, after spending the thanksgiving holiday with my family in Plymouth. Lovely time, good food, and all the rest, but we couldn’t very well spend thanksgiving in Plymouth without going to see Plymouth Rock, now could we?

I took a boatload of pictures when I was up in the Berkshires for the last week of August, and I am slowly (very slowly) working my way through the various subjects.

Unlike Great Barrington, which seems to have been designed to maximize useful quaintness, Pittsfield was a true company town. There was a massive GE plant here for years, and it employed pretty much everyone. Pittsfield was the city that developed to accommodate it. And then it slid into despair, living up to its unfortunate name.

In the past few years though, it’s seen a bit of revitalization – a real push to make it a place people will want to visit. I’m not sure it’s there yet, but it’s certainly in a better place than it was ten to fifteen years ago.

as always, click through for the full image.

The true test is actually traveling, but I recently bought Sadie a new carrier, as my old, backpack-style one was getting a little cramped for her – she was still able to curl up and go to sleep when it was flat, but when held upright (necessary whenever I actually needed to carry her anywhere), she looked like a poor hunchback and was clearly uncomfortable. In any event, the new carrier came the other day, and she now uses it as her bed half the time. And even when I’ve had to nudge her in there, she certainly doesn’t require a cat catcher!

In November, I went over to London to visit my brother (who is attending the London School of Economics), and my trip was documented by my posting a handful of photos while I was over there. And then the rest of my photos have been sitting on my computer for the last 4 months waiting for me to sit down for an hour and given them a good pass-through. I took hundreds, but here are the 40 or so that I thought were worth posting. Full images and descriptions when you click on the thumbnail.

A new post!!

I know.  I’m a terrible terrible blogger.  And I’ve already posted this pic on twitter, but I was so struck by how it looked when I was waiting for the train home tonight that I felt compelled to take a picture of the sunset and save it somewhere with a bit more permanence than my twitter feed.

On Monday, I decided to go super-tourist and spent the day taking tours of the tower of London, which is one of the few things I hadn’t actually seen in my many prior trips to this city. On Tuesday, I met up with my brother in camden town, where we got lunch and I proceeded to take zero pictures. But I did stop at covent garden on my way back and snapped a few shots there. I also met up with some colleagues from my new job for drinks last night, and may now be regretting the bottle of wine we split. But that was quite fun as well.

The tower was actually quite fun. The beefeaters who give the free tours are clearly chosen for their personalities, because our guide was a complete blast. As usual, pictures of the full days will get posted when I’m home, but here’s a sampling of a beefeater guarding the jewel house and an entrance at covent garden.

Today, my brother was very excited to take me to borough market, which is essentially the green market on the south side of the Thames. Of course, remembrance Sunday put a damper in those plans, as pretty much everything was closed. Including the train to take me to borough station, forcing me (the horror) to walk from Bank station, where I accidentally emerged at street level in the middle of some sort of procession/parade across London bridge. Which was, in actuality, quite lovely.

So then, in search of something to see and/or eat, we ended up walking all the way down Thames walk to black friar bridge, back across, and taking a tour of LSE, before having a classic pub lunch.

Again, more pictures will follow once I arrive home, but today’s photo of the day is the view of the millennium bridge and st. Paul’s. And I didn’t even edit this. It’s really this beautiful out here.

Last night I arrived in London, on what amounts to my first real vacation since 2009. I’ve said it elsewhere, but it really took having a job again to appreciate having time off. As much as I tried to ‘enjoy’ my period of unemployment, there was a constant undercurrent of worry, and I certainly wasn’t going to travel anywhere extravagant, if for no other reason than the thought that the minute I stepped away from New York would be the exact minute a headhunter with the perfect job would come looking for me.

So anyway, I’m in London, ostensibly to visit my brother, and to see a few other folks, including meeting some people I actually work with but have never met in person, and catching up with a few former colleagues on this side of the pond.

Today, since my brother had a conference to go to, I took myself to the British museum. A full set of photos will get uploaded once I can edit them properly on my computer, but I thought I’d start off by testing my camera to iPad adapter by showing photographic proof that I’m actually here.

About a gazillion years ago, I went with some girlfriends to Vegas. Since none of us actually gamble (other than about $20 in slot machines), we took a day and drove out to visit the Hoover Dam. I worked with electric utility companies, and one of my friends was an architect, so we had an incredibly nerdy time, and made sure to take the hard hat tour, which allowed us to actually go inside the dam and see its inner workings. For obvious reasons, post-9/11, this tour is no longer available. I also seem to be missing any actual photos from the trip, largely due to the fact that I was using my first, incredibly crappy digital camera, and I don’t think those pictures ever made it onto any sort of computer, but I did bring back one souvenir, which I’ve managed to hold onto all of this time. Periodically I wonder what the heck I’m actually going to do with a hard hat, but for now, it’s something to take a picture of.