More Museums and Galleries of London

Yesterday was a rather mundane day. In Shakespeare, we discussed the performance of Doctor Faustus, although no one really had anything good to say, and then we had meetings with our instructor about our final papers. I had a frozen dinner and then met up with some friends at a local pub, the Duke of York.

Today's British Art & Architecture class took us to the Tate Britain, where we saw some paintings by Turner and Hogarth, along with some modern art pieces. It's very interesting because there are very little classical paintings actually on display, and the museum curator has taken a lot of criticism for how the galleries are set-up. I would have liked to see more paintings because I was under the impression that modern art was mainly shown in the Tate Modern and that older British painters were shown in the Tate Britain.


We got on the bus to travel to Trafalgar Square but had to get off at Parliament Square and walk the rest of the way. There was a "suspicious package" found and the streets were blocked off. They take threats very seriously and find it better to be cautious in situations like this because of past occurrences with bombings. For instance, there are very few rubbish bins to be found on public streets because they make for easy targets.


After making a detour through Green Park and across The Mall, we made it to the National Gallery to take a closer look at a few more paintings by JMW Turner we had discussed in class, like "The Fighting Temeraire" (1838).


I had lunch with a few of my classmates after our Gallery visit. We had gone to Lincoln's Inn Fields and ate a picnic in the park. There were so many business people sitting in the grass while eating their lunches, suits and all. It was really quite astonishing to see them in such a relaxed atmosphere, a stark contrast from how a lot of members of the corporate world act here in the United States.

After lunch, we went to Sir John Soane's House. He was an architect who combined two townhouses in a very unique way in order to create his home. He left it as a museum and stipulated in his will how it was to be kept. He really played with how light was let into a space, and he had a terrific collection of historical artifacts and paintings. He had the entire collection of William Hogarth's original paintings for the "Rake's Progress" along with various other paintings, and architectural drawings he did himself. The walkways are so narrow that you are not allowed to carry jackets or large bags through the museum. It really was a fantastically wacky place!

An Elizabethan Thursday

For Shakespeare class today, we traveled into London and walked around to the different Inns of Court. The Inns are where barristers in England would train and carry on with their professions. There are four Inns, including Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, and Inner Temple. It was the closest thing to a modern-day university in London around Shakespeare's day. They are still used for legal education today, and students are encouraged to develop connections with each other as they are required to attend 9 formal dinners per year in order to graduate. Middle Temple was being set up for a dinner this evening, and we were able to see it from the gallery.





We had lunch and then went back to Surbiton for the afternoon. I caught the train back into London with a couple of my classmates and we saw a performance of Doctor Faustus at the Globe Theatre. It was an interesting interpretation of the play, to say the least. Here is a picture of the opening set.


We have a busy weekend ahead, so it's off to bed for me. Cheers!

I was in two places at once!

We were to meet at Waterloo train station for Art & Architecture yesterday for our field trip, but first I had to walk to Kingston to print out my essay. I took the bus to Surbiton Station and made it in time to take the fast train. (The different speeds of trains have greater or fewer amounts of stops. The fast train has no stops along the way and is the best way to travel into London.) I was really excited because I made it to the station early and had time to get some coffee and donuts!

Our class traveled to the Hampstead Heath area to visit Kenwood House. It was a beautiful estate that was remodeled in the 18th century by Robert Adam and houses a great collection of paintings by Rembrandt, Turner, and Gainsborough.




We finished there by 1:00, and I was going to go back to Kingston for some shopping. I texted Joanna and found out that she was also in London. We decided to meet up, but by that time I was already on the train. So, I got off at the next stop, which was Vauxhall and waited for another train going back to Waterloo. Once we found each other at Waterloo, we planned to go to Greenwich. We took the tube to Canary Wharf, but we couldn't figure out where to go from there and ended up taking a taxi to Greenwich Park.

Once we got up the hill to the Royal Observatory, we queued so that we could take our picture standing in two hemispheres at once!



We explored the museum about the history of the observatory and then walked around the park more.



We passed by the Queen's House, built by Inigo Jones between 1614 and 1617 for King James I's queen, Anne of Denmark.


Last night, a group of us decided to go bowling in Kingston. The Brits are much more reserved in that aspect too. All of the other lanes were very quiet, and there was very little celebration. In our lanes, we cheered when anyone knocked over at least one pin! It was weird because the bowling balls were in kilograms, not pounds. So, we had to figure out which ones were the best to use through trial and error. None of us thought to look up the conversion factor on our phones! It was definitely an eye-opening experience too see a group of North Americans compared with the locals in a social setting like that.

Passing the Time

Monday's Art & Architecture lecture was short. So, I went back to Seething Wells, had some lunch, and made plans to go into London for some exploring. I went to the British Museum with two friends, and it was completely overwhelming because there is so much to see!


The most important thing I wanted to see was the Rosetta Stone. It's weird to think how big of an impact this stone had on understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics. You wouldn't think it was so important just by looking at it, but it just goes to show that appearances are deceiving.


We also saw Greek and Roman statues, Egyptian mummies and artifacts, Middle Eastern relics, and a section on the history of clocks and watches. It was pretty neat to see the evolution of different types of clocks and how the inventions of the pendulum and of gears were incorporated.


We walked to Covent Garden and did some shopping and people-watching. There are always at least a handful of street performers on the piazza. So, you can never be short of entertainment.

We made our way back to Waterloo Station, and just as our train was scheduled to leave, an announcement was made that there had been a fatality at Wimbledon. All Southwest Trains service was delayed, which meant that we were essentially stuck in the city for a while unless we wanted to find a bus. We were all hungry at that point and decided to walk along the river to find a restaurant for some dinner. We ended up going to a place called Giraffe and ate very delicious burgers. By the time we got back to the train station, there was limited service running, but we were able to catch a very packed train that would take us back to Surbiton.

The British government is running into financially hard times, and they are limiting services, such as health care, that used to be readily available. People are losing not only their jobs, but also their hope. Some people can't deal with the stress, and so they feel like throwing themselves on the train tracks is their only option. It is such a sad state to be in that so many people just want to give up on trying.

After such an exciting Monday, I needed a quiet day, which thankfully Tuesday provided. We discussed Thursday's performance of Much Ado and then our readings of Doctor Faustus in my Shakespeare class. I walked back to the flat with a classmate, and we had some really good discussions about life. The evening was filled with paper-writing, and so, here I am... Tomorrow is another day with all the promise of a new adventure!

Cheers!

The View from the Top...

...of St. Paul's Cathedral is absolutely magnificent. For British Art & Architecture on Friday, we toured St. Paul's, and we were able to climb the 528 steps to the top! It was so exhausting but entirely worth it.

The cathedral was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London in 1666. (It seems like every building I talk about was destroyed in the fire. It really was of such an incredibly large magnitude that the entire city had to be rebuilt.) Construction was not finished until 1711, and this had a lot to do with Wren's problematic designs. He wanted to bring Baroque influences to the church, but those elements were considered too Catholic for the Church of England. The domed cathedral is one of the most recognizable buildings in London's skyline. It was influenced by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Wren always considered St. Paul's Cathedral to be his most defining work. He is buried there in the crypt, and his epitaph reads

"LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE."

which translates from Latin to

"Reader, if you seek his memorial, look around you."

The church still has services today, but they aren't as regularly attended as they would have been back in the 18th century. Many of the churches in England, especially in London, charge a fee for touring the buildings to make up for the deficiency in parish members.

We took a short lunch break, and I got a sandwich from Pret à Manger and ate with one of classmates at a little park near St. Paul's. Pret is a chain of little restaurants that pre-make sandwiches and salads daily. The food is always fresh, and it is everywhere in England. It is a very common thing for the British version to have mainly cold sandwiches available. The food is very good, and it is definitely something I will miss.

After lunch, we took a walking tour about The City, which used to be the occupied by the Romans. It is mainly the financial and business districts now. We saw a few of the other churches that were built following the Fire, such as St. Mary Woolnoth. This church was one of several built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, who studied under Wren.


We then went to see Southwark Cathedral. This is a good example of a Gothic church that survived the Fire because it was on the opposite side of the river.


Saturday was a day-trip to Stratford and the Cotswolds. We saw Shakespeare's birthplace, and toured the area for a while. The English countryside is so peaceful and beautiful. The villages are adorably small and have a lot of character that hasn't been destroyed because of the tourism. I think the tourism has actually helped keep these areas alive. Agriculture is on the decline as an occupation because places like the US and mainland Europe are becoming increasingly advanced in their techniques and production levels.

We stopped in Bourton-on-the-Water, which is nicknamed "Venice of the Cotswolds" because of all the little bridges to cross the canal. It is a very small area, but it had some neat shops and a lot of places to get refreshments. One of my flatmates also went on the trip, and we stopped to get tea and scones. I'm not one for tea, but it was delicious. And the scones melted in your mouth! I was very happy with our experience there.



I went out on Sunday morning with a few friends to Camden Market. It was insane and so busy. There were a lot of trinkets and cheap souvenirs, but if you kept looking, you could find some neat vintage items. It was definitely an experience to remember.


Sunday afternoon was time for a proper English tea. I shared this tier of treats with two girls. We all got our own pots of English Breakfast Tea, and after we finished with the sandwiches, chocolates, and sweets, we were brought warm scones with clotted cream and jam. It was very filling, and it was so much fun to take part in this custom. Afternoon tea is usually done only for special occasions and is more like a meal in itself. The change in social customs and in working hours has made it more of a treat rather than a normal occurrence.

Cheers!

Week 2: A Summary

This past week was filled with learning. On Tuesday, our Shakespeare class discussed Thursday's performance of Hamlet, and we also discussed our interpretations from reading Much Ado About Nothing.

Wednesday's British Art & Architecture class took us to Chiswick House, which was built by Lord Burlington. He was a very wealthy landowner and built this estate in the Palladian style, but it was also one of the first examples of an extensive English picturesque garden. Explorers were making regular trips to the American colonies and were bringing back plants and other items. No one knew how these plants would react, so by creating gardens that were imperfectly shaped, as opposed to the French gardens that were very axially planned, there was more room for experimentation.



Thursday was filled with yet another train delay. Our Shakespeare class was supposed to meet at Waterloo train station, as we were scheduled for a tour and exhibition at the Globe Theatre. We got on the train, and then we found out there had been a fatality a either Vauxhall or Clapham Junction. So, we were forced to get off at Wimbledon and take the Underground District Line into the city. We made it to the Globe Theatre in time for our workshop, which was really an eye-opening experience for me. We talked about how acting on a stage in the round differs from a traditional stage; the former allows for different movements that are never in a direct path, and it is important to not stay in one place for too long because the actor will isolate their audience. We broke off into pairs and performed exercises with lines from Much Ado. It was a really great experience to be able to dig deeper into what makes a play different from a novel.

We hung around Southwark for the rest of the afternoon, and we saw a performance of Much Ado About Nothing that evening at the Globe. It was a wonderfully performed play, and the best part of all was that Leonato was played by Joseph Marcell (aka Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)! It was a traditional take on the play with how the costumes were handled, but it felt very modern in how the characters interacted. There was a lot more audience interaction with this play, and it really helped me stay engaged throughout the performance. It was absolutely terrific!

Classes, etc.

Tuesday was Shakespeare day. For our morning session of class, we talked about what life would've been like in Elizabethan/Jacobean England. Plays were created for different classes, and then they were performed at different venues according to the audience. Shakespeare's plays at the Globe Theatre attracted all kinds of people from peasants to upper-class. And he wrote on levels that everyone would understand.

After lunch, we met our professor in London for a walking tour of Southwark (the south side of the River Thames). We passed by the replica of the Globe Theatre, the site where the original Globe stood, and a few other neat places.

Then, we took a tour of the Golden Hinde, a replica of the ship used by Sir Francis Drake during his privateering days against the Spanish. It didn't have much to do with Shakespeare but was informative and entertaining.

Tuesday evening was somewhat uneventful, and yet entirely too eventful and I was very glad for Wednesday to come. My Art & Architecture class was to meet in London for a field trip. While we were on the train, we found out that there would be a delay because someone had fallen/jumped onto the tracks at Wimbledon station and had died as a result. It was so sad to hear, I guess it is pretty common to have that happen though (at least once a month). I think it is such a sad way to go.

Eventually, we made it to London Waterloo and walked to the Banqueting House, built by Inigo Jones. This is the only portion of Whitehall Palace still standing and is the site of Charles I's execution. It also has a beautifully detailed ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens.

We made our way to the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery to see paintings done by Rubens, Hans Holbein, and Van Eyck. People were already starting to line up at Trafalgar Square for the Harry Potter red carpet premiere. It was crazy!

Thursday's Shakespeare class brought discussions of Hamlet and a seeing a performance of the play at the Globe. It was performed by a traveling group, and they did good, but it wasn't what I was expecting. It lacked the emphasis on key scenes. It was very fast-paced, which made everything seem like it had the same amount of importance. A few of us from class decided it would be a good idea to stand outside the stage door to wait for the actors, but they never showed. Oh well!

Do other countries have a fourth of July?

Of course they do! They just don't celebrate it like Americans. (Although, on a few British websites, I saw recipes and barbecue ideas suggesting that some people do celebrate it over here. And there were some restaurants that were running specials on burgers and beer!)

It was ironically our first full day of class here in the UK, and the fire alarm went off 15 minutes into class. We had to stand outside for another 15 minutes because they couldn't figure out what had triggered the alarm. It was definitely a different experience to go through an emergency here. In the building, there were curtains that came down to block the elevator shafts so that they couldn't be used, which I had never seen before. The officials were very polite when they were letting us know about what was happening: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have turned off the sound of the alarm, but please do not re-enter the building. Just stay outside and enjoy the fresh air." It was so funny!

Eventually, we were able to go back into the building. I had British Art & Architecture that morning. We learned about the early royal painters and also about Inigo Jones. Class ended around 12:30. I went back to my flat, had lunch, and decided to go exploring around London with my new friend Joanna.

We went to Kensington Palace, which is absolutely beautiful from the outside. It is currently undergoing renovations because it will be the London home of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. We didn't get to go inside, but it was neat all the same.

We walked around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens for a while. I had no idea how large it is. Together, they cover over 625 acres! It ended up being a lot more walking than I had anticipated, but we found the Peter Pan Statue, shown below,

The statue was sculpted and placed in Kensington Gardens in 1912 by the author JM Barrie. The site where the statues located was mentioned in his first story about Peter Pan, the boy who would never grow up. It was actually quite controversial that a private author should be allowed to promote his work in a public park, but children and adults have so loved the statue that it has remained for almost 100 years.

Then, we made our way to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain.

It was opened in July 2004 and was designed to reflect her life. The flowing water of the fountain invites the public to wade and feel refreshed. It was just a beautiful sight to see children playing in the water, and I'm sure it is something that Princess Diana would have loved.

We somehow managed to get out of the park and find our way back to Surbiton. Being American, I wanted to do something to celebrate our Independence Day. I couldn't think of something more American than McDonald's. So, I had a double cheeseburger and fries. Then, it was back to the flat to hang out with the girls. We had been inside for a while and we heard loud noises outside. We rushed out, and there were fireworks going off across the River Thames! It was a great ending to the Fourth.

Wimbledon

I woke up early and took the train to Wimbledon with two of my flatmates, Holly and Kathryn. Once we got to Wimbledon station, we took a shuttle bus to the grounds and walked another fifteen minutes to join the queue. We queued for about 2 hours and then we had to go through security.

The first thing to do when you get onto the grounds is find a "pitch" on Henman Hill. The good spots are usually taken pretty early by those who queued for hours and hours. It's really neat though because there are lots of families and groups of friends that bring picnics and blankets to watch the tennis matches. A lot of people here in England make it an annual outing. We were actually able to find a really good spot that was close to the screen so that we could see what was happening on Centre Court.

The Women's Doubles were being played first. So, we saw Davenport and Hingis win in 3 sets. Then, I walked around the grounds a bit because we had mostly hurried to find a spot. Although, upon first entering the tennis club, we saw Novak Djokovic practicing on a side court!

Anyhow, I got some strawberries and cream while I was walking around, and I can only say that those were the best strawberries I have ever eaten. That is not an exaggeration. Over 28,000 kilos of strawberries are imported every year for this sporting event, and they are all served within a day of being picked.

The match between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic was so intense. It was such an interesting experience to be part of the crowd because everyone had such respect for the match. There was very little noise while the ball was in play. It seemed like most of the people who were there on the grounds wanted to be there and were taking in the experience to the fullest. Djokovic won in 4 sets (yay!). I was rooting for him. Nadal just wasn't playing his best.

We were leaving the grounds and we passed by Jude Law! It was ridiculous because we didn't realize it at first, but we thought he looked familiar. I searched for a recent picture of him online, and he looked exactly like the man we saw. So crazy!

We had good timing again because we were able to see both Nadal and Djokovic as they were leaving Centre Court, and they waved to the crowds. It was such a surreal experience, and I am so glad I was able to be a part of it.