Weekend trip to London – The Astro Post

I got a message a few days ago from a friend working a co-op term in Versailles saying that he’s visiting London this weekend. I figured, why not? It’ll be nice to see a familiar face, and to give London an actual visit.

After checking with my budget, I decided to take the bus instead of the train. It was about a 5 hour ride, since it left early Saturday morning, I slept through a good chunk of the ride.

London bus station — Victoria coach bus station in London

I was quite impressed by London’s public transportation, it was quick, on time, and easy to understand

I met up with Alexandre in Trafalgar square, where we walked around, chatted for a bit and checked out the British Museum.

We couldn’t visit the actual square, Chinese New Year’s celebrations were being prepared
The line was really long for the British Museum, but moved relatively quickly

I definitively need to come back and pay another visit to the British Museum, it’s huge. Essentially, all the artefacts found by the British Empire throughout history are here (plus some other stuff). Everything from the first grindstones used by the Mesopotamians to Iranian astrolabes, medieval chess sets, native American totem poles, and even the Rosetta stone.

One of the oldest grindstones to mill wheat and barley
The Lewis chess set, dated in the 1100’s.
The statues of the Greek Parthenon
The Rosetta stone, the key to decoding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs

After visiting the museum, we decided to try some famous English fish and chips. Let’s just say, I was not disappointed.

After stuffing our bellies, we walked around the Thames river, admiring the view of London at night:

Not too sure what this is, but there was an arcade in the basement
On the right is Big Ben, in all it’s scaffolding glory

We said our goodbyes and parted ways to our hostels (the one he booked at was full). I was planning on visiting the Imperial Museum the next day, but saw an ad in the newspaper (yes, I read those) for an exhibition called “Moving to Mars” at the Design Museum, about human missions to Mars. It was only around until mid-February, so I thought it was now or never; one of the reasons I wanted to travel Europe in the first place was to visit as many space museums as I could, so this was a great find. I totally nerded-out with all the space stuff inside:

I was pleasantly surprised by a 1:10 model of the European Ariane V rocket in front of the museum
The next European rover, ExoMars, (on the right) will have a drill capable of digging 2m deep, to search for signs of life on Mars
(From front to back) Pressure suits from the retired soviet Buran space shuttle, Soyuz capsule and American U-2 spy plane.
(From front to back) A boot made with lab-grown fungi fibres, a bioreactor housing oxygen-producing algae, and a hydroponics display
An idea for constructing a base on Mars using hive robots

Sadly, I had to catch my bus back to Manchester. I stopped in Birmingham for a connecting bus and had the chance to walk around a bit:

Birmingham at night — I wouldn’t mind coming back to visit Birmingham, but also wouldn’t mind if I didn’t.

When I finally arrived in Manchester, I felt a feeling I haven’t had in quite a while: familiarity. “I’m back.” I then realized that I’ve been exploring the unknown this entire time, and for once, something felt like home, it was nice.

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