london take 2

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I went back to London yesterday with my friends Ebony and Laura for a more relaxed type of visit than we had last week. We slept until about nine (yes, I said "until," and yes, I realize this is crazy talk), got on the train, and were in London by around noon. The first thing we did was walk to the Tate museum. We were going to go to the Globe first and see if there were any tickets left over for Othello last night, but we had looked online before we left and it seemed that there weren't any, and since we already had taken pictures at the Globe last Saturday, we just decided to save ourselves the walk. We went into the Tate Modern - which is GIGANTIC, really, I took a couple of pictures walking in before the fun police aka security guards stepped in and got in the way but the pictures really don't even do it justice - and began aimlessly walking around looking at all the awesome, free, awesomely free exhibits. On the first floor (or Ground Floor, as these crazy Brits would call it) there was a big exhibition about population density in the world and how populations are growing like crazy all over the place with all these big huge Lite-Brite looking maps to illustrate where in the world all the people are. It was interesting but ironically enough a bit overcrowded itself so we went ahead up the stairs to where the art exhibits are.

The second floor has abstract art which was really strange and kind of maddening. It was the kind of paint splattered on canvas or entire walls painted black type of art that makes you kind of stand there scratching your head and wondering what you're missing. It made me think that all the artists were in a room somewhere watching us on the CCTVs, laughing and slapping each other on the back at what idiots we all looked like trying to get something from their work. The third floor was a lot of the same. Some of the abstract art was really cool looking, very big or colorful or cubist or what not. They had some Picasso, which was really cool, and some Warhol, which was cool by name even though I'm not a huge fan of his art itself. One exhibit was a green neon light that had been titled and mounted to the wall in a diagonal fashion... And that was it. Just a light. Titled. Diagonally. Right, next exhibit then... There was a whole room filled with what looked like leftover plumbing. There was a baked beans can on a pedestal behind a glass door labeled "Wrong Gallery" that if you stared confusedly at for long enough, eventually a hot dog would pop out of the top and wave at you before sinking back down in the beans. For that one I KNOW the artist was sitting around somewhere watching and cracking up.

One really cool exhibit was a hanging lattice work looking gazebo that was woven out of leather or some similar fabric, I'm not really sure what it was. It was all suspended delicately from the ceiling in lapping and overlapping layers, but instead of a simple square basket weave it was all woven into letters, the entire thing put together to form a passage from the artists' favorite book about time travel and the importance of space and scene and what not. You could walk through the middle of it and allow the shadows to fall on your face but no matter how hard you stared at the lettering it was pretty impossible to figure out where the whole thing began or ended or even form words, but I think that was the point.

There was also an entire Dali & Film exhibit that we had to pay 11 pounds to get into but considering the rest of the museum was free that wasn't that bad. They had a lot of his smaller works and a few of his films playing which was kind of neat to see even though they're all pretty weird. I'm a Dali fan so I really enjoyed that part of it, especially learning fun little facts like that he was supposed to be working on a movie with Walt Disney at some point, drawing out the scenery and what not. I'll have to look up the name of the film because I don't think it ever actually got made, but if it did I will have to go out and rent it. The Dali museum in St. Pete is still my favorite place to go to see his work, because the entire place is basically devoted to him and they have all his BIG BIG works that take up entire walls and for those standing across the room and looking at them will give you something entirely different than getting up close and looking at the details. Still, it was a really cool exhibit and it was fun seeing works of his I never had before.

After the museum I went around the Thames taking pictures and looking for my artist, who according to the girls at the Tate isn't really out on the streets anymore. He used to do stencil work around London but now apparently he's pretty well known and most of his stuff is gone so I'd have to see it in a gallery or exhibit somewhere, or in a book like the one I got from Waldenbooks at home, unfortunately. So instead I just sort of walked around the rest of the day, stopping inside for lunch to get out of the rain and taking pictures of all the crazy assorted street performers along the Thames underneath the Eye and alongside the Aquarium and Jubilee Gardens.

Today I just slept in, bought some presents at the Market Square (for who? you? if you're lucky!) and went back to the Fitzwilliam with Anne Marie. I saw some more paintings I had missed last time including some Picasso and also a whole room that contains the Egyptian Book of the Dead! That was pretty cool. In the gift shop they had old exhibit posters left over from past shows they were selling for like 20 and 50p, so I bought a couple of those for my new house which I'm really excited about.

Only 5 days left and so much still to do and see! Tomorrow is the legendary punting wars on the Cam! We're having a punting race among the kids staying here at St. Catherine's. It will be the Literature kids versus the History kids. It will go down in Cambridge History! We were contemplating t-shirts but I think that was a little over ambitious. Anyway, Literature has to win! I'm also going to try to make another picture cd tomorrow to clear my camera for punting wars pictures, so I will post those as soon as I can!

xo

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