London

I once again am making a trip across the pond for FOSDEM. This time, instead of flying to Brussels, I chose to fly to London a few days early and then take the Eurostar to Brussels. The nice thing about this itinerary is that I was able to take a direct flight from Denver to London, Heathrow. The flight was not very full, and I ended up with a whole row to myself!

I arrived in London around 10:30 in the morning. Getting to my hotel was a matter of taking a few underground trains to the Lambeth North station. The Tube is so easy to navigate, and my hotel (Point A London, Westminster) was literally right across the street from the Lambeth North station. I arrived at around noon, and was delighted to discover that my room was already available. I was quite tired after the long trip, and so I took a nap for about an hour.

At this point, I was pretty hungry. I ventured out into the drizzle to find a restaurant for lunch. I found Enough to Feed an Elephant which has good ratings, but I was unimpressed with the service (it was very slow) and the food was not what I expected (so that’s on me). It was calories though, and I felt somewhat rejuvenated after eating.

Tate Modern

After lunch, I headed over to the Tate Modern. I’m not really a big fan of modern art, but I figured I should go to up my elite street cred. I stayed for a little over an hour before I got bored and decided to do something else.

Here were a couple of things in the museum that I thought were kinda cool.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Tate Modern is right across the river from St. Paul’s Cathedral, so I looked to see if there was a church service going on. There was a Sunday evening service happening, so I went and attended it. You can’t take pictures during the service, but it was a nice service right under the dome.

I was still quite tired after my travel for the day, so I took the Tube back to Lambeth North, found some food and then turned in for the night.

The British Museum

On Monday, I slept in and then I went to the British Museum, arriving around 11:30. I’ve been to the British Museum four times I think, and every time I find something new that I hadn’t seen before. This time, the coolest thing was the Enlightenment Gallery which had a bunch of artefacts from the Enlightenment period. There were many old books on the shelves. Due to the number of tourists, they have plexiglass in front of them, but I thought it was cool to think about how much knowledge is stored in those manuscripts!

The Transport Museum

After visiting the British Museum, I went to Menya Ramen House for lunch and then walked to the London Transport Museum. London is famous for two iconic public transit infrastructures: the London Underground and the red double-decker buses. The museum had exhibits about the history of the buses and undergrounds and how transit has expanded throughout the decades. But I think the most interesting exhibit was a comparison of photos from the Blitz of WWII and photos from Kyiv during the ongoing war with Russia.

The National Gallery

On Tuesday morning, I went to the National Gallery. I’m not much of an art museum person, but just like with the Tate Modern, I figured it would boost my elite street cred. My favourite kinds of paintings are landscapes.

I ate an overpriced, but pretty good, lunch at the museum cafe before heading back to my hotel.

Imperial War Museum

The Imperial War Museum was close to my hotel, so after a few minutes relaxing, I walked through the drizzle over to the museum. I only had time to go through the floor dedicated to WWI. It was sobering to think about how many casualties were suffered by both sides. The casualty figures in the massive pitched battles like the Somme, Verdun, and Ypres are horrifying. As I walked around the exhibit, I thought about the soldiers in Ukraine who are fighting a very similar static trench war right now. I’m so glad that we have a president who believes that peace is better than war and is working to stop the fighting.

The Shard

On Wednesday, I visited the Shard. The tallest building in Western Europe. There is an enclosed viewing area and a terrace around floor 70 with views of all of London. You have to take two elevators to get to the enclosed viewing area, and then you have to go up more stairs or an elevator to get to the terrace which is the highest publicly accessible floor.

There were two guides of sorts walking around and answering questions, and one of them did a short presentation on the terrace about the history of the Shard and interesting facts about it. A few things that I thought were especially interesting were:

• There was a British architect that wanted the contract to build a building where the Shard now stands. He didn’t get the contract. Just recently, he built a skyscraper in Warsaw that is exactly 1 foot taller than the Shard just to spite them.
• The Shard is designed to look incomplete, like it’s trying to reach its full height. They can’t go taller because of airspace requirements around Heathrow.
• The Shard was designed to be transit-first: it’s located on top of a train station, its closer to London Bridge Station than London Bridge itself, and there’s a bus stop at the base as well.

Eurostar

After visiting the Shard, I headed up to London St. Pancras International Station to take the Eurostar to Brussels. I took the Eurostar From Paris to London in 2022, but this was my first time leaving out of London.

Getting on the train was very easy. Passport control in Europe is very streamlined for most passports. All you have to do is scan your passport and they do biometric verification with a picture. I wish that the US Border Control implemented something like this. We already have most of the technology available for Global Entry, so there is no reason for us to not allow a much more streamlined border control process for citizens and nationals from countries that don’t require a visa. But I digress.

I arrived in Brussels Midi and took transit to my hotel. Brussels is fairly well connected, and my hotel was a hundred metres away from a tram stop making it very easy for me to get to the hotel. By this time, I was very tired from travelling and after dinner, I headed to bed.