My 'Hood

Since some of you are curious and not on Facebook, here are a few shots of my neighborhood, taken last weekend as the December sun peeked out over north London.

Here is my street, which dead-ends at a pedestrian bridge that goes over a valley full of train tracks. Our flat is on the 2nd and 3rd floor, so you can't really hear the trains much. Our station is midway across the bridge -- the platforms are down below -- so it's a one-minute walk. Not bad at all.



Our bus at the cross street. It stops in this same spot going both directions. In one direction, the bus takes 5 minutes to get to Crouch End. In the other, the bus takes 5 minutes to get to our Sainsbury's, which has just been remodeled and is the nicest Sainsbury's in all of England. It's so nice, it's as nice as an American supermarket. If you've been to an English supermarket, you know what I mean.



This is the cross street the bus was on before. These houses built up against each other with no space in between are called terraced houses, or terraces. Very common in the cities here. This is one of the nicest terraces I've seen so far.



This is the public library, on the corner of our road and the cross street. They were renovating it right as I moved in. It is so cute! I can see into it from my windows. I'm thinking of checking out the book club.



Alexandra Palace, which for a long time was the headquarters of the BBC. This is the view from the street the bus takes to Crouch End. The Palace is actually a couple stops up on the train.



Our train station. Only open on weekdays during the day. It's one minute to Finsbury Park, not quite ten to King's Cross (where the line terminates on weekends), about fifteen to Moorgate (where it terminates on weekdays). Late trains on weeknights (coming and going) are out of King's Cross, which is great for going out. There's a train every 10 minutes on weekdays, every 15 on weekends. If I time it right, I can get to work in less than 20 minutes. So you can see why I love my station.



To clarify for all you Yankee types: the station (the building you see) is only open on weekdays during the day. The platforms are down below, they are open 24/7. There are ticket machines on the platform, so you could buy tickets at any time. But if you need to talk to the nice man, get a timetable, or a free newspaper (that hasn't been properly copy-edited), then you need to come by weekdays during the day.

Honestly my only real complaint is that you can't recharge your Oyster card at our station, cos it's one of those National Rail stations that does not like Oyster. So I always have to recharge in town or online. Oh and an Oyster card is a little blue card that you touch on the turnstile as you enter and exit the Tube (the subway). A lot faster than inserting a paper ticket. And they give you a fun carrying case that I suppose is meant to resemble an Oyster (if one thinks very abstractly).