London Day 2

Day 2

We had a somewhat restless and biologically confusing night, as our bodies were used to a seven hour difference.  In spite of it we woke refreshed and eager for another day.  We had many things planned, but plans change.  Instead we saw some other things which were unplanned for but still great.  We initially were planning on going to the Tate modern, buying the London tour pass, taking a boat ride to the Tate Britain and then spending the day at the museum and around Big Ben.

First going through public transport at eight AM was… nothing short of terrifying and insane.  But don’t fear, we came off conquerors.  We were sardined through the subway and came out at London Bridge station where we followed the crowd for fear of being either trampled, accosted, or lost if we were to loiter.  In the mass of people we found sanctuary literally in the most charming little garden courtyard of the beautiful Southwark Cathedral.  We painted studies of it and after we were frozen by the British spring morning we went inside to look around.  The stained glass windows were awesome and beautiful as well as the general architecture of the building.  We couldn’t take pictures though, because you had to get a pass which was a euro, the only problem was that they didn’t take cards, and we had no British pounds yet.  So we continued our walk toward the Tate.  Jennifer convinced me that I was a tourist and would shake myself later for not taking pictures.  So I resorted to looking like a tourist and taking lots of pictures while we walked.  The streets are so… So European! I wanted to take a picture around every corner, and did for a while, until I began to be more selective about the buildings we passed. 

Upon arrival at Tate Modern however they had no London pass, so after a skimpy view of the horrendous Damian Hurst we got help from the most charming and helpful lady who told us specifically that we needed to take five trains to Piccadilly to buy passes.  So off we went, wasting about an hour getting our London Passes and then went to go to the Tate Britain…. But we got lost… and stumbled upon Big Ben! J So we took his picture.  The tour sounded lame so we didn’t go tour it.  We then wandered into The Churchill war rooms which is the labyrinth under a large government building.  The prime minister basically lived underground in these rooms and tunnels during the war, with all his chief of staff and even his wife.  There was an extensive tour and I thoroughly enjoyed it, having read a biography on Churchill. 

The war rooms exited into St. James park I believe it was called where a royal someone or other had a bird park.  It was awesome and just for me bird galore.  They were just laying and nesting and preening all over the place we took tons of photos.  There was even a little cottage where the bird caretaker  lived.  Squirrels and pigeons  were also in abundance and a family of swans and I could go on and on.  We even took a good picture of us. 

Then we saw a collection of Davinci anatomy drawings at the Queen’s gallery.  It too was fascinating he had some mad drawing skills as well as patience to tackle such a project.  Simply amazing.

At this point we stumbled around trying to get back to the Tate Brittain.  Rode on a bus got lost decided the heck with it all and went back to the National portrait gallery.  I saw a few more sergeant paintings.  And we both went to see a Lucien Freud exhibit and it was fascinating, I vastly prefer his work in person and I'm glad I had a chance to see it.