jollino

[jollino]

Chieti An unplanned shot of my hometown's skyline, taken while on a test flight. The belltower on the right is St. Justin's cathedral.

[jollino]

Tanzsprache Canon 7D Mk II + Sigma 105/2.8 Macro + Amaran HC100

[jollino]

Gilded Canon 7D Mk II + Sigma 105/2.8 Macro + Amaran HC100

[jollino]

Ambush A misumena vatia, properly camouflaged by wearing the exact same color as the flower it's on, stands perfectly still and waits for the bee to make a fatal mistake. Canon 7D Mk II + Sigma 105/2.8 Macro + Amaran HC100

[jollino]

Oh Hello There A roe deer playing peekaboo

[jollino]

Om Nom Nom A roe deer having a snack

[jollino]

Take Off! Shortly after taking off. Pescara, Montesilvano and Città Sant'Angelo (and their specific features) are easily visible.

[jollino]

Going North These are likely the Alps, but I'm honestly not sure. I faked the GPS location. Does it matter?

[jollino]

English Architecture Already on the train to London from the airport, the local architecture reminded me of just how different this place is from what I'm used to. This is Hackney.

[jollino]

Oyster The inevitable trophy photo: my old Oyster card still worked, and I had just loaded my weekly Travelcard on it. This is Liverpool Street station, and those in the background are the gates to the Underground's platforms.

[jollino]

Bandaged Just off the Central line at Queensway, I was welcomed by this peculiar approach to preventing that anyone sit on that bench. I have no idea why they did that.

[jollino]

Queen Victoria Right in front of Kensington Palace in Hyde Park, looms a statue of the ever-scowling Queen Victoria, though admittedly she appears slightly less annoyed here than she does in front of Buckingham Palace. Must be the squirrels.

[jollino]

The Horses of Helios It took me a while to take a relatively clean photo of this because it's apparently a sought-after background for selfies. Piccadilly Circus.

[jollino]

Lego Store This is the kind of thing that just doesn't really show up well in pictures and must be seen in person. Not only it's the biggest Lego Store in the world, but there are massive constructions such as a full landscape of London (which took hundreds of thousands of Lego bricks and a dozen people to build), a scaled replica of the Big Ben ("the only Big Ben that currently chimes every hour", as a friendly guy who works there quickly pointed out), and this giant Tube train car that people can literally sit on. Insane.

[jollino]

M&Ms The M&Ms shop is right in fron of the Lego one, but grows underground rather than above. I slightly cut the statue's arm as the place was ridiculously packed for a Monday night (it was 7:20 pm!), and lots of people were unsurprisingly taking selfies here. The most peculiar thing about this shop is that the smell of chocolate extends a solid 4-5 metres into the street, so just passing by it you catch a sniff of the unmistakable flavour of M&Ms.

[jollino]

Piccadilly Circus (the worst-ever photo thereof) There's more to Piccadilly Circus than the giant screens. Yes, this is horribly framed, but it's included because it's a beloved memory of being back in London, with all its mess and chaos and hybrid cars and buses and whatnot. I was happy to be there; that's what this photo is about.

[jollino]

Frank Pick At the time I had no idea how Frank Pick was, but this is his memorial at Piccadilly Circus. He was the first chief executive of London Transport and, among other things, is the designer of the Johnston typeface and the TfL roundel. (If you've ever been to the UK, you instinctively know how pervasive Johnston's legacy is.)