If you ever find yourself with a free afternoon in London, be sure to visit Old Spitalfields Market. Located in London’s East End, Spitalfields is a covered market that features stalls selling everything from fudge (pictured above) to antiques to arts and crafts. If you love perusing antiques stores like I do, definitely plan to visit on a Thursdays when the antiques vendors are there. My favorite stalls were those selling 1800s era photos of London, old magazine advertisements, and World War II militaria. The “antique” offerings at other stalls are a bit more suspect, however; one vendor was selling an oak wardrobe for an astronomical price, claiming that it was from the Victorian era, yet it looked just like one I saw at the Furniture Market recently. Others were selling toys from my childhood, which I guess could be considered antiques depending on your definition of “old”.

My first visit to Spitalfields was in January 2010 on a visit to London. Oddly, I never made it to this market when I actually lived in London a few years prior. Back then I lived near Borough Market, so typically spent every Saturday morning there buying fresh fruit and enjoying some freshly made falafel and hummus. Whereas Borough Market focuses exclusively on food, at Spitalfields you can find a wide variety of products for sale. My friend was in a shopping mood and purchased an alpaca sweater that was handmade in Peru. My purchases were smaller, but delicious; I bought some of the above fudge and a “world’s best brownie” (if you couldn’t tell already, I have quite a sweet tooth). Much easier to take on the plane than an antique piece of furniture!

When I lived in London and my friends from the US would visit, I would always take them to Hyde Park. The park itself is lovely, especially on a warm summer’s day when you can enjoy a Pimm’s Cup at one of the hotels near Hyde Park, but the main attraction is really the Speakers’ Corner. Located in the northeast corner of the park, Speakers’ Corner is an area where you will find a number of people standing on stools, yelling about whatever subject they are most passionate about. Since most of the subjects tend to be controversial (politics, religion, etc) you’ll often find audience members arguing with and heckling the speakers standing before them. Robert’s Rules or Order definitely don’t apply here.

Londoners have been debating and heckling each other at Speakers’ Corner since the late 1800s. Some of the most well-known people to drag their soapboxes to Speakers’ Corner have been Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and George Orwell. These days, you’ll often find, within mere feet of each other, a Christian preacher and Muslim imam arguing over religion, a socialist railing against the European Union, and a dejected football fan complaining about his team’s latest loss. Some speakers will have large crowds gathered around them, while others will find themselves ignored entirely. It’s an interesting, and always entertaining, showcase of London’s diversity, so if you find yourself in London on a pleasant Sunday morning, I’d recommend a visit to Speakers’ Corner. The closest London Underground station is Marble Arch on the Central Line.

The above photos shows the Tate Modern and Millennium Bridge in London, UK. I lived in London from 2004-05 when I was a student at the London School of Economics. My dorm was located in the Bankside neighborhood, right behind the Tate Modern. At the time, Bankside was undergoing a transition, and many restaurants and businesses were moving into the neighborhood.

The Tate Modern building was probably one of my favorite buildings in London, as I’m just a fan of gritty industrial architecture. The building was originally an oil-fired power station that generated electricity from 1952 to 1981. (Interestingly enough, the building’s architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was also responsible for designing the iconic red telephone boxes that used to be found throughout the UK). In 2000, the Bankside Power Station became home to the Tate Modern, which is now the world’s most-visited modern art gallery. The station’s mammoth turbine hall is the site of large art installations that change every 6-12 months.

In addition to the Tate Modern, there are many other sights to visit in the Bankside neighborhood, including the Globe Theatre and Borough Market. A short stroll across the Millennium Bridge will take you to St. Paul’s Cathedral and then further into the city center.

This is Buckingham Palace, the official London residence of the British monarch. It did not become the official royal palace of the British monarch until the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Queen Elizabeth II now resides here.

Typically, the public isn’t allowed to tour Buckingham Palace, but in 2009 the Palace began to hold tours during the summer/fall (when the Queen is at her summer residence in Scotland) in exchange for a sum of money from the British government that would pay for repairs to the palace. Tickets to the palace are £17.50, a rather pricey sum (especially for a student – my mom made me go ), but well worth it if you have an interest in the royal family and have the funds to splurge after booking a stay at one of the luxury hotels in the UK.

The Buckingham Palace tour takes you through nineteen of the Palace’s State Rooms, which are used by the Royal Family to receive and entertain guests on official occasions. On the tour you will see a ton of chintzy knick knacks as well as museum-worthy paintings and sculptures by some of the world’s greatest artists (which makes one wonder why the UK government is providing the Royals with funds, but I digress…). At the end of the tour, you can walk inside the walled-off Palace garden, which quickly makes you forget that you are in the middle of a huge city. And, of course, if you felt that you haven’t given the Royal Family enough of your money, at the conclusion of the tour you can go into the Palace gift shop and buy a variety of souvenirs (Queen Elizabeth II shot glass, anyone?)

View of the Tate Modern art museum from the Millennium Bridge. The building that now houses the art museum was formerly the oil-fired Bankside Power Station, which closed in 1981. As a grad student at the LSE, I was lucky enough to live in the Bankside dormitory that was located directly behind the Tate Modern.

These dragons mark the boundary between the City of London and Greater London:

“The City of London is a small area within Greater London, United Kingdom. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though remains a notable part of Central London. It is often referred to as the City (often written on maps as “City”) or the Square Mile, as it is just over one square mile (1.12 sq mi/2.90 km2) in area.”

The first time I walked by the Texas Embassy, I did a double take. Surely Texas doesn’t have its own embassy in the UK? That would be bizarre, but not completely unexpected given the inflated ego of the state’s residents (and I say this as a Californian ). Well, as it turns out, it is just the name of a Tex-Mex restaurant near Trafalgar Square. My friends and I spent our 4th of July here in 2005 when the soggy London weather forced us to cancel our plans for an Independence Day barbecue. If you can’t have hot dogs, you might as well celebrate our country’s independence from the Brits with margaritas and nachos.

Photos from my January 3-11, 2010 return to London, with day trips to snow-covered Oxford and Gloucester.

Not that it’s really been a bad year. Hell, I made it out to Costa Rica, China, and North Korea, so 2009 was quite fantastic. Except for one slight, uh, problem. A few weeks ago I was laid off from my job and am now unemployed. But more on that later, because I have to run away to Europe for about three weeks.

In a few hours I’m off to Dulles airport, where I will board a plane bound for London and then hop another flight to Berlin. My family and I will be in Berlin for a few days, then take the train to Prague, spend a few days there, and then travel to Vienna. I’ve never been to Berlin or Vienna and am very much looking forward to finally seeing these two cities. And of course, Prague is a lovely place with copious amounts of beer and dumplings. I will also be spending a week in London to catch up with old friends and wander around a city I haven’t spent a proper amount of time in since 2005.

I’ll be back in 2010, with plenty of photos and blog entries. At least now I actually have time to write them.

Via Transport for London comes this new ad campaign regarding the dangers of illegal cabs. Now if only DC had a competent agency like TFL to regulate cabs I might be willing to take them more often. London cabbies are truly the best in the world.