The Trip
As part of my birthday present, for yesterday, Ol and I spent a weekend in London to see some of the sights. We went down by train from Suffolk, where are staying with Ol's aunty, to London to stay with Ol's cousin Chloe from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. Chloe lives in a flat in Clapton, Hackney, which is in East London. From Chloe's we traveled round on bus and tube to the sights we had decided to see.
The Sights
We arrived Friday lunchtime into Liverpool Station and caught the tube to the Tate Modern art gallery. We passed the London Church of Scientology, no sightings of Tom Cruise however, past St Paul's Cathedral, over the Millennium Bridge and Thames, looked at London Bridge up river, to get to the Tate Modern.
The Tate Modern has 5 stories of Modern largely free to the public. The only exhibition you had to pay for was a Dali exhibit and there is more than enough to see without going to it. There are literally hundreds of famous art works from the beginning of the 20th Century up to today. I saw Picasso's The Three Dancers, his and Braque's early cubist paintings, Brancusi's sculpture, Monet's Waterlillies and the sculpture of the guy who uses bubble machines. There is a huge collection of Surrealist art, some of the best being Max Ernst paintings.
The next day we headed out to see the Covent Garden Markets. The sellers weren't that great - lots of overpriced jewellery, London themed stuff, and stuff with your name written/etched/sewn on it. The shops there are good, like the Mooks shop, Guess, the Doc Martens store, Miss Sixty etc. Performers stage shows around Covent Garden and we saw an unicyclist, juggler, obnoxious magician who kept asking for 'any speakers of English' and some human statues.
After Covent Garden we walked down to Trafalgar Square, which really didn't have that many pigeons, and to the National Gallery. The National Gallery is also free to enter and again has hundreds and hundreds of works in its collection. We saw Leonardo Da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks, another one of Monet's Waterlilles, which really do stand out, Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, and all the old Byzantine Art. The wooden altarpieces of the Byzantine period always looked so boring in slides but not in person with all the gold leaf and Lapis Lazuli blue paint. We saw heaps more but the two galleries house far too much to take in and really see.
Then on Sunday we went shopping on Oxford Street. I got new sandals for Spain, certainly not for this freezing country, and some sunglasses, also, probably, only to be used when I get to Spain, for my birthday present from Topshop. In the afternoon we went to the British Museum, once again a free attraction. We did the museum quickly but we got a look at Egyptian artifacts, some terribly boring Greek Vases, they are even boring to be seen in person not just Classics Class, the Elgin Marbles, and some Maori carved greenstone. We saw it quick but it was impressive.
The People
While seeing the sights we had to contest with the other people in London. London is SO busy. In the mornings it is ok. There are people everywhere but you all manage to fit comfortably enough within London. By the afternoon it seems as if its whole 9 million inhabitants are outside. I needed the toilet one day but in the museum the ladies queue was out the door, in MacDonalds it was the same and I wanted to cry in Borders when there was another 8 person queue out the door. The buses and tubes fill up completely in the afternoons. We queued to join a queue to join a queue to get on the tube in one place in the Underground.
Then you get the crazy ones. I think some of them act crazy on purpose just to get some much needed personal space in London. The best was a guy on the bus conversing and swearing to his mate on his phone. Then, when he did not pause between sentences, I realized he was not on the phone. He talked for 15 minutes non-stop at the top of his voice to himself as if he was having a proper conversation. He looked so normal as well.
You don't feel like you stick out in London though as a tourist or foreigner because everyone looks like a tourist or a foreigner. Everyone is trying to work out where they are in their A-Z of London, and taking photos of everything English...
...And that was our weekend in London. From Sophie and Ollie.
