A Few Days in London

What comes to mind when you think of the great cities of the world? The classic European capitals of Paris, Madrid, and Amsterdam? Asian powerhouses like Tokyo and Hong Kong? The new world metropolises of New York and Rio de Janeiro? Maybe emerging mega-cities like Dubai, or historic cities like Cairo and Istanbul? In my travels I've been fortunate enough to visit many of these great cities. I love exploring historic neighborhoods, skyscraper districts, museums, and vibrant cultures. But for a while there's been a gaping hole in my city resume - the capital of the largest empire that ever existed. Home of famous landmarks, a popular royal family, and diverse world culture: London.

I'd been hoping to take my first visit to the UK for quite some time now, and this summer an opportunity presented itself - a week long roller coaster trip with the American Coaster Enthusiasts. I flew in a few days early to explore London with my friends Janice and Peter, the Canadian and Swede who are currently living there. See, I told you it was diverse!

I had a fantastic time in London. It's a lively city with a wide variety of attractions. We covered a huge amount of ground. According to my Fitbit I walked 46.6 miles in less than 4 days. I'll let the pictures tell the story of my journey around London:

Almost there!

I rented an electric car for the day so we could visit Thorpe Park. More about that in an upcoming UK coaster post.

Janice is younger than me, so she likes selfies. And snapchat. Youths these days.

I'm driving on the left side of the road! I was a bit nervous, if you can't tell by my face.

We rode a lot of big red doubledecker buses. So London.

Having a few beers at Brewdog in Shepherd's Bush.

Peter got a bunch of beers to share as well. Drinking across the UK!

We didn't just drink beer. We also visited the Canada Gate in Green Park.

Looking across St.James Park.

At the horse guard's palace.

The central part of the city was full of neat architecture, buses, and tourists. Not necessarily in that order.

British Parliament.

Big Ben is the bell in the clocktower. Look how muddy the Thames is!

The London Eye is very photogenic.

Well I guess so.

Millennium Bridge to St.Me's cathedral. I mean, St.Paul's cathedral.

"The Shard" is one of the new skyscrapers in London. There are a ton under construction. This is from the Borough Market.

A neat alleyway/market filled with happy hour drinkers.

More modern skyscrapers, including "the gherkin." 

Shoreditch was my favorite neighborhood. Really neat street art.

Liverpool Steet Station. We visited several other amazing stations, including King's Cross and St. Pancras.

Inside the British Museum.

That's the Rosetta Stone behind the throngs of people.

A cool Mayan stone carving in the British Museum.

We had a fantastic lunch at the Lady Ottoline.

Inside King's Cross Station, the "Harry Potter" station.

Trafalgar Square.

Piccadilly Circus. This was my least favorite part of London.

The John Snow pub. Named after an early pioneer of epidemiology. Unfortunately the nearby Broad Street pump has been removed for a construction project. :/

Royal Albert Hall. We were there for the first day of BBC proms. Janice works across the street.

The Camden Locks neighborhood reminded me of Little Five Points in Atlanta.

But Camden Locks is way bigger and has a huge crowded market.

I didn't realize there were canals in London!

The view from Primrose Hill, where we had a lovely picnic lunch and got some free wine.

We took a very pleasant walk for a few miles along the canals.

Hyde Park.

A guy in a Lego costume right across from Janice and Peter's apartment. There was some kind of ComicCon thing.

Even with 4 days, I felt like I barely scratched the surface of London. I can't wait to return some day. Next up: the ACE UK coaster tour!

Salt Lake City

In June I had a chance to visit Salt Lake City for work, to present at a symposium on climate and health in Utah. Considering I'd never been to SLC, I flew out a few days early and spent the weekend exploring the city and the area.

Salt Lake City is a very friendly, clean city in an attractive setting. While the city doesn't get a lot of press and doesn't have the buzz of up-and-coming cities like Austin, I found it to be quite pleasant and livable. It has an impressive series of bike lanes and a growing transit system. A grid system of streets across most of the city makes it easy to navigate, although the extremely wide streets and long blocks can be daunting for pedestrians. Downtown is nice but bland; luckily I was able to venture into some of the more interesting neighborhoods.

The demographics of Salt Lake City are pretty interesting. It's 59% Mormon. That's pretty Mormon, but it also means there's a lot of people who are other religions or non-religious. Certainly it's a conservative city (as evidenced by their beer laws), but there's a strong under-current of counter-culture and hipsterism, mixed with a good dose of environmentalism. And that's a good thing, because Salt Lake City faces some major environmental problems with drought and reduced snow pack (thanks, climate change!). Hopefully the recent focus on sustainable initiatives will help to improve these problems. On to the pictures:

Flying in to Denver, where I had a layover

Passing the Rocky Mountains

The Wasatch range, just outside Salt Lake City

First stop - the Utah state capitol building

Nice murals of natural sites in the state

Impressive from the outside

The Mormon temple

A new mall in the center of downtown. Nice idea, but all quite generic - I can shop at Gap at home. And it's owned by the Mormon church, so this entire shopping area of downtown is completely closed on Sundays.

The light rail goes right through downtown. It was pretty popular.

I made a quick stop at the Tracy Aviary in Liberty Park, which was really nice

A small but neat neighborhood

Rice-Eccles Stadium, home of the the Utah Utes and the 2002 winter Olympics. That's the torch on the left.

The Natural History Museum of Utah, where my work symposium was held. Beautiful building.

The impressive interior of the building

Solar panels on the roof

With my first full free day, I drove to Park City, a 40 minute drive into the mountains. It's a nice touristy mountain town. Although it's mainly a ski resort town, there's a surprising amount of summer activities, including an alpine coaster!

Riding the alpine coaster. Fun ride.

Wheeeee!

Wait, that's not an alpine coaster. 70mph? 5Gs? What could that be?

It's the actual bobsled track from the 2002 Olympics! This was an incredible once in a lifetime experience. Totally worth it!

The bobsled track

There was also a nice little Olympic museum

The Olympic ski jumps

Downtown Park City

Beautiful views on the way back across the mountains

I took the Southern route back to visit another stadium - this one at BYU in Provo

Back in Salt Lake City I visited the interesting public library

Of course I had to ride the roller coasters in Salt Lake City. :) Lagoon park has a nice collection of rides.

Lagoon also has a picturesque setting in the foothills

Unfortunately the awesome-looking new ride, Cannibal, wasn't quite open yet

Antelope Island State Park was a bit north of Lagoon, and offers some pretty scenery

The Great Salt Lake

Good views in Antelope Island. But there were SO many bugs! I started a hike and literally had to run back to the car to escape the swarms of gnats.

And there are wild bison!

He was rubbing himself on a rock.

Back in Salt Lake City - the Capitol Theater

The blocks are so big, they have mid-block crossings in some areas with orange flags you can hold to be more visible to cars

Breakfast at Alchemy Coffee in the cute Liberty Park neighborhood. The employees were super helpful, giving me suggestions for neighborhoods to visit. 

Unhinged, a neat store in the Sugarhouse neighborhood

The "15th and 15th" neighborhood. Reminded me a bit of Virginia Highland in Atlanta, but with less retail and restaurants. The quaint King's English book store was here.

Lots of floral landscaping like this across the city. This house is in the "Avenues" neighborhood

Utah version of chicken and waffles at Avenues Proper. It was decent.

A view of downtown from the Avenues neighborhood

The super wide streets of Salt Lake City. You can shut down multiple lanes and still have plenty of room for the light traffic - and that's exactly what they did here, for a pop-up event.

Rail container shops at the Granary Row pop-up. Great idea to activate empty streets!

Turns out it was Salt Lake City Pride weekend. I watched some of the parade before heading to the airport.

Utah cowboys!

A girl scout troop marching in a gay pride parade in the heart of the Mormon state of Utah. We've come a long way!

I had a fun time in Salt Lake City. You have to scratch beyond the surface and visit some of the neat neighborhoods to get a real taste of the city. Despite having over 1.1 million people in the metro, it still manages to feel like a friendly small town. And with close proximity to hiking and skiing in the mountains, SLC is a great city for people who love nature. There are certainty more exiting cities in the US, but I admit that Salt Lake City grew on me, and I'm sure I'll return some day.