Sunday, October 22, 2006

London IV


So I returned yet again to London yesterday. I took a little stroll from the train station through Southbank to Tate Modern, where I looked at and enjoyed modern art, including these massive slides that are apparently all the rage. I then walked across the Millenium Bridge and sat on the steps of St Pauls to eat a sandwich and immerse myself in the satisfaction of knowing that I will now be in dozens of strangers random vacation pictures. When I got up to leave a wedding was just getting out and the sidewalk was flooded with middle aged English women in suits and giant matching hats. It was almost too much. I fully intended to go see a play after that, but all the good ones were taken and I didn't want to spend £27 to see Footloose, so I went to the National Portrait Gallery. I liked the National Portrait Gallery. It's like this combo of history and art where you walk around looking at paintings of people and learn about why they deserve to have their painting hanging there.

I also feel obliged to mention that I have somehow enabled the knack, that no matter where I am going in London, the sun is always directly in front of me, and the wind is blowing from behind me, so a good portion of the time I am squinting while trying to get my hair from turning into a total 'fro.

Now for a juicy additional Guy Fawkes day preview... There is a building here on campus that is covered with scaffolding. Then I learn that the reason it's covered with said scaffolding is because last year on Guy Fawkes day some 'arsonists' stuffed the window with lit fireworks and the building was gutted by fire. And it's only two weeks from today...

Library times. I've got to learn about how compact cities and sustainable urban transport.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you thought about a baseball cap and ponytail to combat the wind/sun situation? OK, looks dorky, but doesn't comfort/convenience rule at times?

Let me know if you need me to send any info on the compact city and sustainable urban transport stuff. I've got a pretty darn good library here, ya know. So how's the university library? Probably a little bigger than mine...

Anonymous said...

so how was tate modern? did you enjoy? that's my favorite museum over there just cuz it's so WEIRD.

have you done the london eye yet?

Anglo Mango said...

I enjoyed Tate Modern. It's nice to just walk around and look at things and decide on your own if you like it or not. It was quite hodge of podge of items.

And the ideal solution to wind is indeed the pony tail. But I only thought of that when the wind was blowing, and it's hard to get your hair into a ponytail when the wind is blowing.