Great Britain Part II: Looking at Things

I got back to London on Sunday and started the great adventure of walking around and looking at things. But not before learning:

new word #2: left luggage: a place to drop off your bags for a bit while you wait for your train or coach. ex: I left my suitcase with the left luggage so I could go for a walk before the train came.

The first thing I looked at was this cemetery close to Tamsin's cousin's house, and it absolutely fulfilled all my expectations for what a European cemetery should be. It was big and sprawling, walled-in and somewhat overgrown, and there were haphazard gravestones filling all the available space. In Spain, things are (surprisingly) done in a more organized manner, with a cupboard-with-drawers kind of arrangement for the coffins. A little more space-efficient perhaps, but not nearly so spooky and charming. I even saw a real live raven perched on a rubbish bin. 

After formulating a plan of attack, Tamsin and I set out to see Parliament Square--that one big, chaotic square where it's possible to tick half the landmarks of London off your list. We saw: Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Methodist Central Hall, and a bunch of Great Men statues, but did not go inside any of them (least of all the statues). The square was huge and crowded and overwhelming, so much so that it was hard to appreciate the grandeur of it all. I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to imagine (or google image search) the scene at the square--I didn't manage any worthwhile photos.

Because it was there and free, we did check out the new supreme court building, which, even though it was only established within the last decade or so, managed to stay inkeeping with the square's aesthetic of monumentally impressive buildings. In the basement, they had an exhibition of the history of the court, some various gifts and artifacts pertaining to justice, and a live video feed from whatever court proceedings were going on at the time. No photos here either.

View of St. Paul's from St. Paul's

Neither did I manage to take any good photos of the whole of our next sightseeing site: St Paul's Cathedral. Like anything else that's worth seeing in London (except the museums), it costs an arm and a leg to get into the cathedral, so Tamsin and I made an effort to make the most of our visit, listening to the whole audioguide and investigating the length, breadth, height and depth of the entire building (500-something steps from top to bottom). I got really tired and hungry by the end of it, so I don't remember many of the facts.

Like so many other cathedrals, St Paul's has gone through many incarnations, the current one being architect Sir Christopher Wren's 17th century masterpiece. The building supports the world's tallest dome, made of two parts--a lower, more geometrically perfect dome inside, painted and mosaic-ed, and an outer shell made of wood and lead designed to look impressive from the outside. A pretty clever idea in my opinion, since no one would be able to get a good look at the art inside if it was way the hell up on the outer dome. 

Down in the crypt you can see the tombs of the heroes of the Napoleonic Wars--Nelson and Wellington--and throughout the whole place you can find many lesser known military figures from the same period. The cathedral was fairly new at this point in time, and I kind of wonder if someone made a conscious effort to fill up the space with statues to make the whole thing feel more authentic. 

The next thing we looked at was the Tate Modern Museum, the modern art museum across the river from the cathedral. To get from one to the other we had to cross a pedestrian only bridge where we saw: tourists; a rainbow; and a man painting tiny pictures onto the dropped pieces of gum embedded into the walkway. Once across, the museum itself was big, cold and kind of complicated, with escalators that skipped floors and no clear timetable of hours. The art inside was definitely... modern. There was at least one whole room of pieces with titles like blue square and orange and yellow triangles on white field.  And thus museum number one was crossed off the list. 

Museums two and three we put off until the last full day, opting to first look at the Tower of London and a line painted on the ground. 

The Tower of London is really more of a collection of towers that make up the castle-fort that has over the years served the British royals as home, fortress, prison and extra closet space. Because, God, it can be tough to find room for all those jewels. I mean where does the rest of the world keep their meter-wide solid gold punch bowls? Also on display were the mythical ravens whose presence forestalls the end of the monarchy. Just to be safe, their feathers are clipped, and they live in a hutch on the lawn. 

The line on the ground, as you may have figured out from the picture, is the Greenwich Meridian, the line which divides east and west because that happened to be where some guys built a telescope. Those guys (and some of their friends) also made some very important observations and calculations that gave Britain the navigational edge the empire was built upon. So, for a line on the ground, it's pretty important.

The whole building was decked out in green for the show

The evening of our second day in London, we looked at what I think was the funnest thing that we looked at in London: the musical theatre show Wicked. 

Both of us had really wanted to see The Book of Mormon, but tickets for that were exorbitant, so instead we snagged some day-of, half-price cheap seats to a Wizard of Oz fanfic. Definitely worth it. The story was cute, the songs were clever, and the special effects were gorgeous. 

My theatre-going experience up until this point had been pretty slim--one childhood trip to see a matinee in Seattle, and far too many high school productions directed by Mrs. Neilson. I was expecting essentially a Neilson production with fewer mistakes. So of course my expectations were blown out of the water. Now I understand why the tickets are so pricey--you're going to get a heck of a lot more out of a live play than you are watching a Hollywood blockbuster at the local multiplex. 

On our third and final full day in the UK, Tamsin and I hit the museums and really dedicated ourselves to looking at things. SO MANY THINGS. Fossils, skeletons, minerals and crystals, bugs and birds and dinosaurs. Statues, pots, paintings, sculptures, icons, artifacts, mummies. 

All the things that Brits have dug up, discovered, identified and stolen over the course of the last three or four hundred years are on display, and for free. All of it is fascinating, steeped in history and aesthetic beauty, but what struck me most was the sheer volume of objects on display. By and large there wasn't a whole lot of information available about the things we were looking at, but it would take an army of grad students forty years to make a dent in the task. And once it was out there, it would probably only serve to make the experience that much more overwhelming. In all honesty I preferred the Aberystwyth museum with the spoons and taxidermied dogs to the grand treasure chest that is the British Museum. 

We rounded out our trip with the cultural experience of Evensong at Westminster Abbey, which was pleasant after the day of museums. The priest gave a nice speech about Nelson Mandela and perseverance, and the choir sang to us in Latin and perfect fourths. They even handed out pamphlets to tell us when to stand up and sit down, and the lyrics and notes to the songs. 

After that it was back to the land of siestas and Catholicism and work. It was a nice break and worth it, but I think my next trip will be centered less around looking at things and more around... I dunno. Food or something.