Sept 17

Hi all

Yesterday I finally made it to the velodrome over in Brixton (South-east London). The track is the only venue from the '48 Olympics that is still in active use, and is in surprisingly good shape. On Saturday mornings they have open time for anyone who wants to take a couple laps. I spent about 3 hours there - it was a blast. My friend Seb (from work) came along to take a few pictures...







You'll notice these bikes have a) one gear and b) no brakes. And let me tell ya you can get some serious speed up around that track. At the end of the session they put on a 10 lap race (~5km) for whoever wanted to, and in my inexperience I led the entire race until the last 1/4 lap when I was overtaken (twice?) in a final sprint to the line. Good fun though.

Prague

Glorious!

Hey all. This past Monday was a bank holiday here in England, so I decided to burn a couple days of holiday to spend 4 days in Prague. Taking advantage of cheap flights and cheap everything in the Czech Republic is good!
I went with a group of 5 Scots to celebrate the marriage of my good friend Graham, a Scotsman whom I met in Kingston while he was doing his Master's at Queen's. Long story, but he's already technically married and his wife allowed him to have a posthumous (not the right word, I know, but perhaps it applies in this case?? ;)) stag do. Anyway, kilts and undershirts were the order of the weekend and I was made an honorary Scot for the weekend. Better than being classed as American all the time as is the usual.

Prague is a beautiful city often called the Capital of Central Europe. It was one of the few that was spared from destruction through the wars, and as a result, lots of the old architecture is still around.
Here are some more pictures:


Charles bridge in the foreground, and a very large castle in the back.


One of the main attractions is an astronomical clock that is housed in an old church in the main square. Loads of tourists turn up to watch the show on the hour and get their pockets picked by the locals, if they're not careful. Luckily, kilts don't have pockets.

Of course, it wasn't all sightseeing. Had to take advantage of the 20 pence pints of pilsner.

Czech beer is delicious.


Me and Graham in the square.

That's it for now. I highly recommend visiting Czech.

-Dan