![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More England Updates
29/12/04 22:21On Monday I laid low--I didn't want the sinus cold to turn into something that would ruin my vacation--and learned the lay of the land (or at least the neighborhood). The big event of the day was going to the store, where some things were different (you can buy several different brands of shrink-wrapped ham hocks, for instance) and some things were--well, ok, they were different too. Not hundreds of varieties of antibacterial antifungal kill-everything-in-your-body soaps, for instance.
Tuesday--My spiffy "you don't have to deal with tickets, just swipe this card" card doesn't swipe the first time I try to use it. Discovered that I cannot hear the nice man at the Underground station window over the noise of a train as he tries to explain something to me about how I have to tell him where I went three days ago, when I was not even in the country. Finally resolve the matter--it turns out that someone else forgot to swipe the card on their way out of the station and we have an outstanding balance. This is taken care of. I proceed past the gates, where I find...that the line I was told to take in isn't running to where I need it to go due to construction. Quickly find other line, hop on train. Miraculously arrive at destination despite two other train/line changes inbetween.
Never ever let it be said that I cannot read a map.
Flush with victory over the British Railway System (or perhaps just red from the cold) I get to the Museum of London, and spend a pleasant three hours perusing exhibits ranging from the prehistoric history of England (confirming my belief that Aurochs were bigger than any cow should ever have had a right to be) through the Roman era (when in Londinium...er, wait...) and progressing right up through "my goodness, I don't think anyone would have ever been able to breathe in the early 1900s."
There was also a hideously ornate (tacky? I don't know, seeing as how it's used in state occasions) coach which they take out of the museum once a year for the...Lord Mayor, I think.
Progess back through underground complex of dark walkways, pause to read plauqe about "Mendelsshon's Tree" (apparently he sat under it writing ditties for A Midsummer Night's Dream, and when the tree died, they thought it would be perfect to bring some interest to an otherwise horrid covered brick walkway), go to bed with every intention of getting up early tomorrow.
Wednesday--Um, well, that didn't work. Let's see what's open late (eg, past 4 pm).
The Victoria & Albert Museum, apparently! It's open 'till 10!
I spend a lovely time getting completely lost among:
1.) A newly revamped collection of silver, including three nearly-life-size silver lions representing the waterways of Denmark
2.) An exhibit featuring the multitude of ways the illustrator of Beatrix Potter's last books screwed up when her eyesight started failing and she couldn't draw her own illustrations anymore
3.) A lot of odd medieval religious art made from wax, which survived the 1400's
4.) An incredible staircase ("glazed" is really the only way to describe it)
5.) A restored snacking room, one of three originally comissioned for the museum, designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. That I took a while in and looked at all the beautiful little frescoes of the zodiac.
6.) A spinet with keys inlaid with marble and other precious stones (!)
Two hours after I get there, the museum announces that it is closing.
I go upfront, and it turns out that the "open late" is something of a misnomer unless I want to stay for a gallery talk three hours from now or a string quartet two hours from now.
Seeing as how that would put me wandering about at the bus stop later than seems quite safe, I elect to call it an evening and head back.
Tomorrow morning I am getting up early, seeing the Changing of the Guard, and then heading out again to the V&A, and maybe the Nature Museum right next door. And then deciding whether to go see Chiswick House in the afternoon or the next week. Still debating whether I want to do the "Walking around the Roman Wall Portions of the City" walk, or the "Alaistair Crowley was a right git but he hung out at some neat places with Yeats" walk in the book that might as well be titled, "Walking Around London is Free Unless You Want to Eat Something."
For those of you who have read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis: I understand it all now after going to the V&A. I wouldn't be suprised to turn a corner and find, in some out-of-the-way niche, a plaque reading "the Bishop's Bird Stump is currently on loan."
Friday is William Morris' Red House; we reserved a spot the day before it closed yay!
Also, we have planned a trip to Bath!
Beth & Trifles--the Costuming Museum is there and they are showing an exhibit on clothing from Jane Austen movies which compares them to genuine articles of dress from that time. If we go there I will try to take pictures if they let me. Anything in particular you are interested in?
Pictures from today: One of the zodiac frescoes from off the wall at the Morris Room in V&A--possibly Aries, with the sheep?--and the outside of the Nature Museum in the dark (an early example of Gothic Revival architecture in England, designed by...Owens, I think. On each of the flying buttresses there is a different exotic animal. It's quite impressive and ushered in an entirely new wave of design. *I'm not an architecture geek coughcough*).
Tuesday--My spiffy "you don't have to deal with tickets, just swipe this card" card doesn't swipe the first time I try to use it. Discovered that I cannot hear the nice man at the Underground station window over the noise of a train as he tries to explain something to me about how I have to tell him where I went three days ago, when I was not even in the country. Finally resolve the matter--it turns out that someone else forgot to swipe the card on their way out of the station and we have an outstanding balance. This is taken care of. I proceed past the gates, where I find...that the line I was told to take in isn't running to where I need it to go due to construction. Quickly find other line, hop on train. Miraculously arrive at destination despite two other train/line changes inbetween.
Never ever let it be said that I cannot read a map.
Flush with victory over the British Railway System (or perhaps just red from the cold) I get to the Museum of London, and spend a pleasant three hours perusing exhibits ranging from the prehistoric history of England (confirming my belief that Aurochs were bigger than any cow should ever have had a right to be) through the Roman era (when in Londinium...er, wait...) and progressing right up through "my goodness, I don't think anyone would have ever been able to breathe in the early 1900s."
There was also a hideously ornate (tacky? I don't know, seeing as how it's used in state occasions) coach which they take out of the museum once a year for the...Lord Mayor, I think.
Progess back through underground complex of dark walkways, pause to read plauqe about "Mendelsshon's Tree" (apparently he sat under it writing ditties for A Midsummer Night's Dream, and when the tree died, they thought it would be perfect to bring some interest to an otherwise horrid covered brick walkway), go to bed with every intention of getting up early tomorrow.
Wednesday--Um, well, that didn't work. Let's see what's open late (eg, past 4 pm).
The Victoria & Albert Museum, apparently! It's open 'till 10!
I spend a lovely time getting completely lost among:
1.) A newly revamped collection of silver, including three nearly-life-size silver lions representing the waterways of Denmark
2.) An exhibit featuring the multitude of ways the illustrator of Beatrix Potter's last books screwed up when her eyesight started failing and she couldn't draw her own illustrations anymore
3.) A lot of odd medieval religious art made from wax, which survived the 1400's
4.) An incredible staircase ("glazed" is really the only way to describe it)
5.) A restored snacking room, one of three originally comissioned for the museum, designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. That I took a while in and looked at all the beautiful little frescoes of the zodiac.
6.) A spinet with keys inlaid with marble and other precious stones (!)
Two hours after I get there, the museum announces that it is closing.
I go upfront, and it turns out that the "open late" is something of a misnomer unless I want to stay for a gallery talk three hours from now or a string quartet two hours from now.
Seeing as how that would put me wandering about at the bus stop later than seems quite safe, I elect to call it an evening and head back.
Tomorrow morning I am getting up early, seeing the Changing of the Guard, and then heading out again to the V&A, and maybe the Nature Museum right next door. And then deciding whether to go see Chiswick House in the afternoon or the next week. Still debating whether I want to do the "Walking around the Roman Wall Portions of the City" walk, or the "Alaistair Crowley was a right git but he hung out at some neat places with Yeats" walk in the book that might as well be titled, "Walking Around London is Free Unless You Want to Eat Something."
For those of you who have read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis: I understand it all now after going to the V&A. I wouldn't be suprised to turn a corner and find, in some out-of-the-way niche, a plaque reading "the Bishop's Bird Stump is currently on loan."
Friday is William Morris' Red House; we reserved a spot the day before it closed yay!
Also, we have planned a trip to Bath!
Beth & Trifles--the Costuming Museum is there and they are showing an exhibit on clothing from Jane Austen movies which compares them to genuine articles of dress from that time. If we go there I will try to take pictures if they let me. Anything in particular you are interested in?
Pictures from today: One of the zodiac frescoes from off the wall at the Morris Room in V&A--possibly Aries, with the sheep?--and the outside of the Nature Museum in the dark (an early example of Gothic Revival architecture in England, designed by...Owens, I think. On each of the flying buttresses there is a different exotic animal. It's quite impressive and ushered in an entirely new wave of design. *I'm not an architecture geek coughcough*).
