London day three

12:55 mareku 0 Comments

Houses of parliament

Haendel House Museum

The tour in the houses of Parliament is something not to be missed: great to walk around in such familiar spaces and to hear the stories. All the different traditions are great as well. (How the parties in the houses sit opposite each other, red lines they can not cross, green bags for petitions etc.)
Also when walking around in London you cannot notice memorial plaques attached on houses to mark what kind of famous people lived there once upon a time. Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Nancy Mitford and Haendel to name a few.

London, day two

12:52 mareku 0 Comments

Soane's Museum

Olympia Antique Fair

We are staying at the Grand Northern Hotel at St. Pancras - a brilliantly new hotel next to the fully -wonderful- renovated St. Pancras / King Cross station. This must be the place in London with the most connections. Almost all underground, railwaylines (Eurostar!) etc. come together at this place.
But next to that the Camden area is very nice to discover as well. Away from your usual tourists places we find all kind of interesting stuff.  The actual reason for visiting London, The Olympia Antiques fair, is a big disappointment. Sure you can buy some nice decorative stuff, but there are no real gems to be found. Luckily at the same venue there was the the London International Antiquarian Book Fair - which was great!

London: The British Library

12:44 mareku 0 Comments

This is one of the best libraries of the world - you can wonder over The Magna Carta, Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, countless medieval miniatures and even Beatles memorabilia. Funny fact is that the actual building is like a Iceberg: the larger part of is is under ground.

iOS 7: wacky design - some nice new features

15:24 mareku 0 Comments

I switched back to iOS from WP8 today to experience the new iOS7 - and I am not so impressed. I definitely do not like the new design. It is really a bit of a mess, feels old fashioned and sometimes child-like. All that thin-lined icon + transparency stuff won't hold up in the sunlight (no problem in Amsterdam right now...) And especially the iOS 7 home screen icons look ugly, poorly balanced, and of an unattractive color palate.
Not a step forward. But there are some improvements (which Apple got from Android, HTC, Windows and others). The new control center is great. Airdrop, "your day notification", Safari, automatic app updates(!)  etc. are all nice. But the overall feeling is disappointing. Back to WP8 and let's wait for the next release of MicroSoft.

Talking about revolutions: the whole new Mac Pro

14:58 mareku 0 Comments

Since 2006 I am working with my Mac Pro and I loved it throughout. Upgradeable, expandable, silent, robust: what more do you want? Well... The NEW Mac Pro!
WOW this is really something else. This cylindrical designed  Death Star will definitely get a place ON TOP of my desk and not under neath it. Great specs as well. Not sure yet if I can connect all my current stuff to it though - and a little bit afraid it will be very, very expense...

The Last of Us - I cannot wait...

17:58 mareku 0 Comments

Well this is probably the Game of 2013: The Last of Us (by Naughty Dog). It looks and feels greats ,o I almost cannot wait till Thursday when it will be released... A whopping 10 out of 10 on IGN.

Kahn is back: Star Trek into Darkness

17:54 mareku 0 Comments

Well who would have guessed? Kahn is back and after the original Star Trek II ("The Wraith of Kahn") 30 years later he still haunts us (and the USS Enterprise crew). This new episode of ST is really awesome. I like the acting, story art direction and direction. What else do you need?!
Well maybe an exclusive Star Trek outfit which you can buy on Ebay... :-)