Day 15: Kensington Park and Duchess of Malfi

Today I was self-guided and did not use a tour book.  I decided to go to Kensington Park and I don't know if I could have made a better decision.  Weather wise it was the most beautiful day I think I've ever felt on my skin.  It wasn't humid, the sun was out, the breeze was high, and everyone was at the park.  Having grown up down the street from Sugarhouse Park I consider myself pretty spoiled but Kensington blew it out of the water.  Its several city blocks of grass and pathways, gardens, statues, monuments, fountains, and people.  People playing cricket, tanning, eating, and trying to play frisbee with one hand on a beer.  Its amazing.  The energy of people happy to spend a day doing nothing at the park is palpable.  I got myself an icecream and sat down to watch some of it.

 So let me tell you about British squirrels... Squirrels? you think. Yes, squirrels.  These are not skinny chipmunk like American squirrels.  They are fat, practically domesticated British squirrels.  They will eat out of your hand and harass you for food when they see that you have some.  They are pretty bold at the school, snacking on whole sandwiches that I can only assume they pull from the garbage; and you always see two or three when walking past the lawns but the ones at the park were on crack.  I saw one scratch its ear with its back foot like a dog.

 A statue called Physical Energy.  I think its actually pretty cool.  I give props to anyone who can get on a horse without a saddle of shoes.  Wow the composition would have been way better with the horse's head wouldn't it?  Eh, live and learn.

 Delicious soft-serve ice cream and chocolate "flake."

 People chillin at the park.  Remind you of anything?
Such as...

Haha, well that's what it reminded me of.  Funny part is I then proceeded to see some work's by Seurat (the artist of above) at the National Gallery the next day.  London: both the work, the inspiration, and home of the artist.

 Which one do you like better?

 

Queen Victoria's tribute to her husband Prince Albert built in 1875 which took 10 years to finish.  Nothing says I love you like signing the check for a bunch of day laborers to build an overly tall statue using the ancient fortune that you inherited.  Sorry but I think it's complex of living in London, you think you have to over memorialize everything.  Reference my thoughts on Southwark Cathedral on Day 19.  Cause really a nice headstone and some flowers every year weren't enough?!

So picturesque no?

The Peter Pan statue!  Given by the author, JM Barrie in 1912.

 Cool no?

  

Irony of all ironies here.  I randomly take a walk to the park and what do I find but a Bulgarian festival?! I saw traditional dancing and what I assume was traditional mimery (a mime performed) and it was cool.  Then the next day I heard some girls in line in the cafeteria talking about banitza and somehow recognized a little of the language they were speaking.  I guess I am closer to Bulgaria over here.  Just funny :)

Pretty awesome dancers!

So after my excursion to the park, people watching, and laying in the long grass for an hour or so I headed back to school and got together with cute Miss Alex to go to The Duchess of Malfi.  Its a play that reminded me a lot of Hamlet just more gruesome.  It was performed at the Globe in 1614 so the language was pretty impenetrable for me.  Hopefully it will help prepare me for Henry IV.  It was cool though I was surprised to find out the date because I didn't realize that they were so...graphic back in the day.  I mean there's hangings, a neck snapping, stabbings, incestuous activity, all kinds of sexual hints (though no nudity thank heaven), and a minute long death scene of two men choking a single woman all done on stage, and the choking of two children implied and heard in the "next room".  It was hardcore and the plot could be difficult but visually it was super cool.  The last scene has blue lights and "snow" falling on stage.  The music was fantastic.  The opening scene compromises a dozen or so men in robes holding lit candelabras in low light doing this ritualistic dance/march.  And the combination of the music and the duchess' entrance in almost darkness from tall double doors at the back of the stage where she is backlit by a stunningly bright white light was every bit as visually dramatic as Elphaba flying in Wicked.  So, not a waste, not my favorite, but free tickets well taken.

Day 14: Sherlock Holmes Museum!

So I love living in this city.  The public transportation is amazing. But about one day a week I absolutely refuse to get on the underground.  No day in particular; but sometimes you just gotta take it easy and stay at surface level.  This was that day.  So we kicked around London a bit.  The cool thing about London is that you find stuff without even meaning to.  

 

On our quest for a Banksy we stumbled across a home of Charles Dickens.  We also came across the church where Wilkie Collins (Woman in White) was christened.  Nutty.

So anyways, we found where Banksy's "parachuting rat" used to be.  I ducked into a bookshop and queried the man at the desk when we couldn't find anything and he pointed across the street to where it had been.  Unfortunately since the art is technically graffiti the place has to paint over it or let any punk with a can of spray paint tag up their store.  Its cool though.  Being there was enough :)
So off I went to the museum just around from the school that I hadn't been to.  Sherlock Holmes!

 The cool thing about the museum was all the references that only the book savvy will catch on to.  It was a cool little museum.  Was it worth the 6 pounds?... For a nerd such as myself I'm glad just to say that I've been but I wouldn't recommend it to the amateur enthusiast.

.

This was where I got to discover my fear of wax figures.  I assure all readers that I had no idea it was a fear.  We had just been kicking around the idea earlier that day of going to Madame Tussauds, who is around the corner from school.  I walked into the 3rd floor of the museum and saw about, what I assumed, was a dozen people.  I got a little freaked out when none of them moved. I identified them as wax figures and just got freaked out.  Those things are unnatural and creepy.  Maybe I've just spent too much time in haunted houses where anything vaguely humanoid is liable to jump out at you.  I don't care.  No wax figures!  I could not relax from the moment I saw them and I could barely bring myself to get closer and turn my back on a few.  It was a quiet night after that.

Day 13: British Library

Due to a paper due this morning at 10 I was rather sleepy and preoccupied.  However I did make time to go to the British Library with our London Wizard Jane and I am so glad that I did!  I saw some of the coolest stuff that nobody but an English nerd could really appreciate.  Behold:

 Jane Austen's writing desk.  Bad picture but its the thought that counts.

A published poem by Oscar Wilde written during his period in prison

This is the nerd inside me who spent five years playing in an orchestra.  One night George Frideric Handel couldn't sleep and began composition of Messiah.  It is one of the most famous orchestral pieces in the world and he completed it in 24 days.  Big whoop, writes a song in nearly a month right?  No, a composition like that is writing every part for every instrument in the orchestra: violins 1, 2, and , viola, cello, base and making them mesh properly.  The score is 259 pages!
I saw the book Alice's Adventures Underground that Lewis Carrol presented to Alice Liddel as a gift, a painting by Tolkein of the Hobbiton, an early printing of Geofrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the manuscripts of The Adventure of the Retired Colonel (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dicken's Our Mutual Friend, Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,  and Elliot's The Wasteland!!!  And all sorts of early prints.  The all time winner though was William Blake's notebook with THE Tyger, tyger scribbled kind of to the side of the page and CROSSED OUT!  Its encouraging.  Even Blake thought his work was rubbish.  In case anyone is wondering Tyger, Tyger may very well be my favorite poem.  It was unreal to be so close to history.
Oh, I almost forgot!  I also got to see first draft pages of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter.  It was from book 1, the part where Harry is trying to find platform 9 3/4.  Unreal!

Day 12: Highgate Cemetary, Hampstead Heath, Keat's House

So on Day 11 we went to Freud's house...I'm not really a Freud fan and I was still struggling with jetlag pretty bad.  Monday and Tuesday were definitely the worst.  Anytime I had to sit and be quiet between 10 and 2 I was liable to get suddenly exhausted.  Came to find out after Freud's house, when I confessed to falling asleep during the movie, that everyone had been watching me struggle to stay awake during class the last morning.  Claire counted how many times I nodded off, it was 7.
Day 12 was awesome though.

 This beautiful monument? APARTMENTS!!!

 All the people were like wow, tourists much?  But such a neat little park.  This is Hampstead Heath, which is apparently a term for park that people totally understand.

 I tried to be artsy fartsy...

 The monument to Karl Marx

George Elliot was the pseudonym of the woman who wrote Middlemarch and some other important books.  I really like this picture.  So I'm not so much about the picture taking but get me in a cemetery with some flowers and I get all instagram :P

Behold!  The house where John Keats wrote a lot of his poetry and wrote the letters to his beloved betrothed.  Our tour guide was so clearly in love with Keats that it was a little pathetic.  Sad life.  His mom pretty much abandoned the family and his grandmother raised them until she died.  Mom came back and raised them (3 brothers and 1 sister) until she died of TB which would also take the life of his brother later on.  He studied to be a doctor but decided to be a poet instead (rock on!!)  And he died of TB also, young and in Italy where his friends had sent him hoping that he would recover.  He was buried with an unopened letter from his fiance in his casket at his own request.  And on his tombstone was no name but "a man whose name was writ in water."  He never got to see his work become famous in his time.

For some reason we thought it was a good idea to take 320 step staircase in the underground instead of the lift and we were descending stairs for about 15 minutes straight.

YEAH!  Like a Potter boss!  We had to stop at Kingscross on the way home.

Day 10: Victoria and Albert Museum

First things first, this museum is a labyrinth.  Finding your way is impossible.  At one point while looking for the 1920s costumes I found a secret staircase and went up a few flights thinking that I could then cross over to the proper side of the museum.  No.  Strange adventures ensued including discovery of a room with a platter of cookie biscuits, which I may have eaten two of and disappeared very quickly.  The V&A is definitely not my favorite museum.  Its cool and there's some neat stuff but it feels very much like a hodge podge and is very confusingly laid out.

 

The goddess Durga, a version of Devi, and her tiger/lion taking names done in ivory.  And an early Buddha.  I want to say that it was old.  At least 900 years.

 Charlie getting his woman on.

 Charlie and I are fabulous

 Let me tell you, those corsets are absolutely brutal.  But I guess they get the job done.

 Just for Bryan and Craig (my brothers) who probably aren't reading this anyways.  An early Thunderbirds comic.

 Isn't this beautiful?  I just love this form of sculpture.

 Long and short swords, called katana and wakizashi, from the Edo period, 1600-1800ish.  These were worn only by samurais and fine blades were often handed down through families.

The Natural History Museum.  Okay, so I do need to go see this.

So it was cool to see some period clothing from the books that we are studying and the museum was interesting but definitely intimidating.

Day 9: St. Paul's, Tate Modern

So some higher power is out to keep me from becoming educated.  Because all the art I really wanted to see is in the back room of a museum somewhere close by.  At the Tate Britain the William Blake etchings that I really wanted to see were not on display and after seeing an entire play about the Seagram paintings done by Mark Rothko I found out that they were at the Tate Modern and couldn't wait to see them.  Not on display.  Mark Rothko also had an exhibition at White Chapel that closed in February : ( I'll definitely call these places a week before I go and see if anything has changed but alas, cruel fate.  This leads me to my very strong feeling that as much as a museum wants to save face and present everything in the best possible curation and lighting, respect the audience enough to respect the fact that yes there are renovations and other exhibits going on.  Don't deny them the chance to see great art though.  Hundreds might pour in every day but odds are most people don't get to come back often.  Rant over, sorry.
I did get to see one Rothko which was painted before he really got into abstract expressionism.

Afterwards Leslie and I went to the Anglican services at St. Paul's.  That was an interesting experience.  I've been to my fair share of Catholic services and Anglican was similar in a lot of ways but the music particularly was very different.  It was much more macabre.  Call me a crazy hopped up Mormon but I think that religious music should be...uplifting.  At some points I wanted to just look around and see if people were serious.  That is the kind of music that would be played in a creepy abandoned church during a horror movie.  It was a beautiful service though in a gorgeous, gorgeous church, also huge.  Leslie and I enjoyed speculating on how hard it must have been to build.
A church has exited on the grounds of St. Paul's since the year 600 AD.  The building has been spared both the Great Fire of 1666 and the bombings during WW2.  When we were at the Museum of London I heard a man in a documentary say that he felt if the church had fallen during the bombings he though England would have lost their heart to fight in the war.
Despite there being a restaurant and a gift shop in the basement we were asked not to take pictures and complied.  So here's a link to some online.

Here's a video of the bells tolling.