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I have been entering a ballot for over two years to go and stay in a boat on a roof. It came real on January 15th this year... The idea of the boat was an architectural competition to create a room for people to stay in, in order to contemplate London. The location..on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, The South Bank. The winning solution, a boat... a free standing, self contained unit, with the romance of travel, discovery and adventure...teetering on the edge of the roof ready to launch into the Thames.
It was enchanting...exciting...it felt like we were flying...we were in the boat in the sky. I couldn't relax I leapt around taking photos, looking in the library of books, stared out the window, looked at the cupboard gallery, leafed through the giant ships log book full of other visitors comments, dreams, drawings, weather conditions, temperatures.
It was blowing a gale outside but toasty indoors. You reach the boat by going through a disguised door, past the loading bays of the QE Hall and into a make-shift elevator. Due to noise disturbance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall the lift was slowed down and now takes 2 minutes which feels like you should be arriving in space! You cross a scaffold walkway over the roof to the boat entrance and then enter the 'Scandi-wegian' style boat interior.
a
We listened to London fall asleep and wake up in the morning. London has a low rumble which quietens down at perhaps 3 am and starts up at 7am... the trains, the traffic.. At 4am the roaring sound of a motorbike hurtling over Waterloo Bridge woke me.. it was the sound of an adrenalin-filled rider claiming London for their own...whaaaawwwwowww... we watched cormorants, gulls and crows in the morning, wrote in the ships log and left. A truly special time. My relationship with London has changed... I'm embarrassed to admit, I fell in love...even though it's full of greed and suffering, it became something else...I can't put it into words... a feeling... a feeling of awe for the energy, the beauty in the man-made.
.......
I have been entering a ballot for over two years to go and stay in a boat on a roof. It came real on January 15th this year... The idea of the boat was an architectural competition to create a room for people to stay in, in order to contemplate London. The location..on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, The South Bank. The winning solution, a boat... a free standing, self contained unit, with the romance of travel, discovery and adventure...teetering on the edge of the roof ready to launch into the Thames.
It was enchanting...exciting...it felt like we were flying...we were in the boat in the sky. I couldn't relax I leapt around taking photos, looking in the library of books, stared out the window, looked at the cupboard gallery, leafed through the giant ships log book full of other visitors comments, dreams, drawings, weather conditions, temperatures.
It was blowing a gale outside but toasty indoors. You reach the boat by going through a disguised door, past the loading bays of the QE Hall and into a make-shift elevator. Due to noise disturbance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall the lift was slowed down and now takes 2 minutes which feels like you should be arriving in space! You cross a scaffold walkway over the roof to the boat entrance and then enter the 'Scandi-wegian' style boat interior. 
a 
We listened to London fall asleep and wake up in the morning. London has a low rumble which quietens down at perhaps 3 am and starts up at 7am... the trains, the traffic.. At 4am the roaring sound of a motorbike hurtling over Waterloo Bridge woke me.. it was the sound of an adrenalin-filled rider claiming London for their own...whaaaawwwwowww... we watched cormorants, gulls and crows in the morning, wrote in the ships log and left. A truly special time. My relationship with London has changed... I'm embarrassed to admit, I fell in love...even though it's full of greed and suffering, it became something else...I can't put it into words... a feeling... a feeling of awe for the energy, the beauty in the man-made.
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