Day 2

(Having returned from the pub)

After I managed to roll out of bed at 11 am on Wednesday (a good sleep, if I do say so myself), Ann took me on a walking trip down in the heart of London. Okay, beginner’s description. It may not have been the “heart” of London, but I saw some of the famous stuff.

We took the tube down to Leicster Square and checked out some of the theatres and half-priced ticket booths. From there, it was just down the street (seriously, maybe a hundred yards) to the National Portrait Gallery and Trafalgar Square. Interestingly enough, I think Trafalgar Square was the most impressive thing I saw all day. The pillar and statue of Nelson is truly massive, and it sort of jumps up there whereas most of the buildings around are just not that tall. We also dipped right in to the National Portrait Gallery and within 30 seconds were looking through the Impressionists (reminds me of the Art Institute a bit, all the famous paintings from the textbooks right there on the wall…what a concept…).

We had lunch in the Crypt at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which was…a bit creepy. Something about a lunch counter…in a crypt…yeah. Cauliflower soup was quite good, though.

We then would our way down Whitehall into Westminster, past the Horse Guards and Downing Street to, of course, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and Parliament (and yes, the word “Parliament” makes me think of George Clinton. I’m sorry, it just does.). A couple notes here. First, as it’s the 70^th anniversary of the London Blitz/Battle of Britain, there are a ton of events and exhibits sort of happening and parked around London. So, while walking down Whitehall, we passed a Spitfire I sort of parked at the side of the road, and as we passed Downing Street, one flew overhead. This was pretty cool for my inner WWII aviation nerd.

Also, and I feel a bit bad about this, but I was not real impressed by Big Ben itself. Let me explain. It was, indeed, very cool. But as an ignorant American, my exposure to it is through the always accurate lens of Hollywood, which tends to exaggerate its scale somewhat. This, paired with my very American sense of large distances between important landmarks or notable buildings, naturally has a profound influence on how I experience “important” or “famous” space (much more on this later, as I try to wrap my head around the different spatial reasoning in the situated urban experience of the U.S. vs. the U.K.). Of course, in London, everything famous is actually quite close together, so what was most impressive about Big Ben, and many of the famous landmarks I saw on this first walk, was not necessarily the landmarks themselves, but their orientation to each other. So, I first sighted Big Ben down the street, just as you would happen to glimpse any other building between a space between two ordinary buildings. Thus, my reaction when Ann said “And there’s Big Ben” was, somewhat annoyingly, “oh. Shit. It’s Big Ben.” This essentially made me feel like an ignorant yokel rubbernecking AND a cynical boor dismissing impressive scenery AT THE SAME TIME. Confusing, to say the least.

Anyway, we continued over Westminster Bridge, then walked along the South Bank to the National Theatre. Some good shows going up this fall, looks like. There’s also the teen-angst prequel to Hamlet, which is up, delightfully, at the same time as a production of Hamlet. And yes, you can see the prequel in the afternoon and Hamlet itself in the evening. If you know…you…like, wanted to.

Past the theatre we would around to Southwark street and the obligatory Chaucer reference to the Tate Modern, which is interesting not only for the modern art (though I harbor ambivalent feelings there, honestly) but because it’s housed in a MASSIVE decommissioned turbine power station. It’s a very strange space for art, and very interesting. There’s a great looking exhibition on voyeurism and photography that I need to check out. The coffee shop on the third floor also has an impressive balcony overlook of the river, which is amazing given the mix of buildings on the other side.

And a bit further up the river bank is the Globe. It’s…freakin’ awesome to look at, especially given the very modern design of everything around it, including the box office and the Millennium Bridge nearby. Of course, the Millenium Bridge was probably the most disappointing part of the day. It’s tiny. I mean, like, 15 feet across. WAY smaller than it looks in that Harry Potter movie where it gets blown up. Yeah, I went there.

Crossed it nonetheless, and came up on St. Paul’s cathedral. Okay, to hell with Trafalgar Square. St. Paul’s is by far the most impressive building. The thing is massive. We walked by on one side, and it makes you feel small. Very, very small. Sadly, we were a bit too tired at this stage to walk around or try to go in (not that you can afford admission), so we grabbed a double decker bus (huzzah!) back to Waterloo station and took the tube back to Hamstead.

It was fish and chips at the pub for dinner. An excellent close to the day.

Of course, you may be wondering, where are the pictures? Interesting story. I actually forced myself to leave the camera at home for the day. At this stage, I’m trying to keep my looking from being through a camera lens. There’s a number of reasons for this, from “I want to see everything first” to “I’m here for three months” to “I want to frame the best shots later on.” Really, though, it’s both a combination of these and a commitment to my research project, which calls for a number of different ways of looking. Hopefully, that commitment will develop some interesting insight, and hopefully this blog can address some of it with progressively more intelligent language…but for now, I’m perfectly happy with the “golly gee!” tourist tone.

Tomorrow (Friday) is student move-in day. Maybe you’ll hear from me soon or maybe not. Actually, this probably won’t get posted until then anyway since I don’t yet have internet…