London River Thames

The London Water Taxi is another way to get around the city-it may not be the fastest but today it was certainly the coolest- seeing the landmarks and place names that I have only  known  from the London Underground, was a connect the dots experience giving  it more shape.

I also took a few buses- and that combined with the water taxi, added to my relational memory of  "Where am I" spatially. I get London now a lot better.

Walking from street to street untethered to my phone,  helped alleviate the  "text neck" of  looking down at Google Maps, blindly  following  them all the time.

Here is a video of  the Water taxi cruising down The Thames:

What's Up? I mean-WatsON

Oye Como Va The Underground...

With its circle logo, distinctive trains and user friendly map, few landmarks of  England  are as iconic as  The London Underground.
Below Mother Nature is Mother London herself-the electrified spaghetti of  the cities entire multi-layered infrastructure.  Until I can navigate the highs and lows,quirks and anomalies of this system , I couldn’t possibly call myself a Londoner.

I have my favorite already: The Victoria Line. It is used by 200 million passengers each year, And today I was one of them. I changed there for the Bakerloo Line and Piccadilly Lines .

Today I was at Baker Street and it seemed so much smaller- because the growth of the subway was just piecemeal and sprawling.The major tube upgrades, face lifts and new stations are simply spliced on to  the  old existing system.

This week there was a strike- there was some overcrowding, delays and cancellations on Tuesday.

I was really impressed with the quality and variety of Subway Musicians or Buskers-who have to audition for the right to freely play in The Tube Stations-I shot a quick video of this dude playing Carlos Santana's Black Magic Woman.