England 2008: Part the First
Oct. 21st, 2008 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisTranscript of October 15 SMS session, approximately 2:15am EDT:
Because we took the red-eye in from Boston, and I never managed to fall asleep on the plane, our first day in London was mostly a blur. Perhaps we shouldn't have spent the day shopping instead of sightseeing, but we weren't exactly thinking straight, and as a result I might have spent too much money buying things like Cadbury Creme Egg bars, and copies of Rusty's book. (Okay, I'll admit it, it's an excellent book, and I'm not sorry I bought it.) We also met up with a friend of mine from a discussion board and had delicious Bangla food over in the East End.
The next day, after 11 hours of sleep – in fact, sleeping through the breakfast buffet we'd paid for – we went down to Earl's Court for the Doctor Who exhibition. Priorities, don'tcha know. I posted several photos from the exhibit to my Flickr England set; it was too dark inside to take any really good shots, unfortunately. It's a pretty good exhibit if you just want to see costumes and monsters; less interesting if you want to know everything about how props are conceived, designed, and created, though there was a nice set of models showing the evolution of an Ood head. On the other hand, now I can confirm that Freema really is a tiny thing, and David has very long legs, and Catherine's tits must be smaller than they look, because I think I could fit into her tops. (Not that I am any slouch in that department, but after that one Shelf O' Boobs photo we've all seen, I assumed she was well into the double-D range.)
Aww, look, it's K-9! I'm not a big K-9 fan, but he is awfully cute in person.
The Weeping Angel the exhibit designers put at the end of a corridor, in a dark corner illuminated only by a sputtering lightbulb, was pretty scary, but scarier still was the smoke-filled room with three Daleks in it screeching "EXTERMINATE." Now, I find the Daleks threatening, but not scary ... but in that small room, with red lights flashing everywhere, and Daleks yelling at you, and Davros lurking in a corner? The little buggers are terrifying as hell.
We recovered at Wagamama for lunch and then headed over to Westminster Bridge to start a long walking tour I'd found online. And there were loads of good things to see, like Big Ben:
and the London Eye, which I could have photographed all day long (though I think this is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
soccerjude's photo, not mine):
and the Globe Theatre, where we arrived too late for a tour, but not too late to photograph its magnificently weird and ornate gate:
complete with mermaid and octopus:
We stopped off at a couple of art exhibits along the way: the excellent Andy Warhol retrospective and Robin Rhode exhibit at the Haywood Gallery. I had just seen some of Rhode's work at the ICA here in Boston and was pleased to see a lot more here; even if Rhode seems to mostly only have one trick, it is a damned good trick.
We hit the Tate Modern after that, where I reminded myself that if I see something in black wrought metal that is terrifyingly huge and hideous, it's probably Louise Bourgeois in action. However, I did discover work from two photographers I'd never heard of before, but absolutely loved: Sophie Calle, and Seidou Keïta. The Sophie Calle pieces were in a room with an entire wall of Jenny Holzer, so that was an added bonus.
The next day, we had an afternoon train to Stratford-Upon-Avon, so we spent the morning at the Transport Museum. If you'd asked me before I left for England whether I'd want to go see a museum devoted to the history of the London Underground, I might have said no ... and that would have been a huge mistake. It was fascinating, not just because I learned about the infrastructure and the cultural/societal changes the Underground and the railways were responsible for, but also because the museum devoted significant space to the visual and information design of Underground type and graphics. I had no idea that the Tube map is the ur-subway map: the way it breaks down into colored lines with a limited set of angles and corners set the standard for all subway maps to come. My geeky designer heart was filled with joy. (Also, if I'd been there withcolumbina, I'd have had to drag him out by the hair. He'd have spent all day in that museum.)
My one photo from the Transport Museum, because come on, how could I not photograph this?
I'll cover Stratford in the next entry, so I'll skip ahead here to say that when we returned from Stratford-Upon-Avon, we didn't have much time for more sightseeing, but we did hit Lillywhite's in Piccadilly Circus to find a Welsh football kit forsoccerjude's husband. (Like us, he's got Welsh relatives on one side of the family.) Afterwards, we walked down to St. James Park and over to Buckingham Palace:
... followed by a short walk up Green Park to catch the Tube back to Earl's Court, where I was finally no longer able to resist a very geeky photo:
There's lots more I could say, about all the British telly we watched (Stephen Fry in America!) and all the good food we ate and all the candy we bought, because we are weak. But instead, I think I'll work on an entry about Stratford-Upon-Avon.
nonelvis: Have arrived safely. Heathrow much bigger on the inside.
columbina: I told you Heathrow was non-Euclidean, but you didn't believe me.Because we took the red-eye in from Boston, and I never managed to fall asleep on the plane, our first day in London was mostly a blur. Perhaps we shouldn't have spent the day shopping instead of sightseeing, but we weren't exactly thinking straight, and as a result I might have spent too much money buying things like Cadbury Creme Egg bars, and copies of Rusty's book. (Okay, I'll admit it, it's an excellent book, and I'm not sorry I bought it.) We also met up with a friend of mine from a discussion board and had delicious Bangla food over in the East End.
The next day, after 11 hours of sleep – in fact, sleeping through the breakfast buffet we'd paid for – we went down to Earl's Court for the Doctor Who exhibition. Priorities, don'tcha know. I posted several photos from the exhibit to my Flickr England set; it was too dark inside to take any really good shots, unfortunately. It's a pretty good exhibit if you just want to see costumes and monsters; less interesting if you want to know everything about how props are conceived, designed, and created, though there was a nice set of models showing the evolution of an Ood head. On the other hand, now I can confirm that Freema really is a tiny thing, and David has very long legs, and Catherine's tits must be smaller than they look, because I think I could fit into her tops. (Not that I am any slouch in that department, but after that one Shelf O' Boobs photo we've all seen, I assumed she was well into the double-D range.)
Aww, look, it's K-9! I'm not a big K-9 fan, but he is awfully cute in person.
The Weeping Angel the exhibit designers put at the end of a corridor, in a dark corner illuminated only by a sputtering lightbulb, was pretty scary, but scarier still was the smoke-filled room with three Daleks in it screeching "EXTERMINATE." Now, I find the Daleks threatening, but not scary ... but in that small room, with red lights flashing everywhere, and Daleks yelling at you, and Davros lurking in a corner? The little buggers are terrifying as hell.
We recovered at Wagamama for lunch and then headed over to Westminster Bridge to start a long walking tour I'd found online. And there were loads of good things to see, like Big Ben:
and the London Eye, which I could have photographed all day long (though I think this is
soccerjude's photo, not mine):and the Globe Theatre, where we arrived too late for a tour, but not too late to photograph its magnificently weird and ornate gate:
complete with mermaid and octopus:
We stopped off at a couple of art exhibits along the way: the excellent Andy Warhol retrospective and Robin Rhode exhibit at the Haywood Gallery. I had just seen some of Rhode's work at the ICA here in Boston and was pleased to see a lot more here; even if Rhode seems to mostly only have one trick, it is a damned good trick.
We hit the Tate Modern after that, where I reminded myself that if I see something in black wrought metal that is terrifyingly huge and hideous, it's probably Louise Bourgeois in action. However, I did discover work from two photographers I'd never heard of before, but absolutely loved: Sophie Calle, and Seidou Keïta. The Sophie Calle pieces were in a room with an entire wall of Jenny Holzer, so that was an added bonus.
The next day, we had an afternoon train to Stratford-Upon-Avon, so we spent the morning at the Transport Museum. If you'd asked me before I left for England whether I'd want to go see a museum devoted to the history of the London Underground, I might have said no ... and that would have been a huge mistake. It was fascinating, not just because I learned about the infrastructure and the cultural/societal changes the Underground and the railways were responsible for, but also because the museum devoted significant space to the visual and information design of Underground type and graphics. I had no idea that the Tube map is the ur-subway map: the way it breaks down into colored lines with a limited set of angles and corners set the standard for all subway maps to come. My geeky designer heart was filled with joy. (Also, if I'd been there with
columbina, I'd have had to drag him out by the hair. He'd have spent all day in that museum.)My one photo from the Transport Museum, because come on, how could I not photograph this?
I'll cover Stratford in the next entry, so I'll skip ahead here to say that when we returned from Stratford-Upon-Avon, we didn't have much time for more sightseeing, but we did hit Lillywhite's in Piccadilly Circus to find a Welsh football kit for
soccerjude's husband. (Like us, he's got Welsh relatives on one side of the family.) Afterwards, we walked down to St. James Park and over to Buckingham Palace:... followed by a short walk up Green Park to catch the Tube back to Earl's Court, where I was finally no longer able to resist a very geeky photo:
There's lots more I could say, about all the British telly we watched (Stephen Fry in America!) and all the good food we ate and all the candy we bought, because we are weak. But instead, I think I'll work on an entry about Stratford-Upon-Avon.