The first time I came to visit my friend Rav in London in January 2003, I did not have much time so we did an accelerated visit of the main sites. It got a bit fuzzy actually and while I remember most of the places we visited, I was not able to remember how to go from one place to the next.

This time is different as I am staying more days here and I am on my own most of the time since Rav is busy at work. In a way, it is better as it is when I visit by myself and sometimes get lost that I get a good feel for a city. At these occasions, my strategy is to walk as much as possible using the bus or tube only if I am in a hurry or if the place I want to go to is too far to walk to.

After having lunch with Rav and some of his coworkers at their office, I wanted to go checkout the Dali museum located close to the London Tower and the London Eye.

I didn’t have a map of London so I had to rely on some directions given to me by Rav and on my tube map. Of course, I got lost and ended up walking a long way with an unplanned detour by Buckingham palace. But I did not mind as it gave me a chance to explore some side streets and a park and I finally found my way to the museum.

The museum ticket is a bit expensive and Rav had warned me that some of his friends had not found the exposition worth the money. But I really wanted to go as I have never really got the occasion to explore Dali’s universe and I have had a kin interest for a long while.

It was actually very interesting for me but if you have already seen things from Dali, it might not be worthwhile as most of the pieces in exposition are not originals. The paintings are mostly lithography and the sculptures are all one of a serie.

Like Picasso, Dali had definitely another vision of the world than most of us. I liked what I saw :).

Later in the evening, I met again with Rav that took me for a walk through the center of what is known as Little India (downtown Southall). It might well be the largest Indian mall out of India. Also, the neighborhood is stuffed with places of cult for the different religions cohabiting there: Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian.

On other news, it is now the fifth day my backpack went missing. I finally got through the BA phone system. The representative told me there was 5000 bags left to process but they would be processed tomorrow. As I am leaving tomorrow, I asked him to change the details on my file so that my bag is delivered to San Francisco now once they find it.