Saturday, 8 October:
Suzanne really wanted to see the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral, so we started our day headed in that direction. When we got to St. Pauls, we were more than a bit suprised to find out that a church charges admission. And they even have a discount if you are unemployed, boy is our faith considerate! Unfortunately, the discount wasn't enough, so we decided to enjoy the building from the outside until we are employed.
We decided to walk across the Milleneum Bridge and head towards The Globe and the Tate Modern. As is typical of the two of us, we headed in exactly the wrong direction and ended up walking about three times as far as we needed to, but eventually got to the bridge. The Thames is a wonderfully murky brown river that sparkles with floating garbage. In fact, right next to the bridge is a floating trash can that apparently collects more than 40 tons of garbage right out of the beautiful river every year. That amounts to 800,000 plastic bottles! The bridge itself is a really neat pedestrian bridge that is very industrial in design and appearance. From the bridge you can see the a juxtaposition of old and new everywhere. Doric columns and steel cable are side by side all down the river. This juxtaposition is exemplified by the end of the bridge where the Tate Modern sits right next to the Globe.
We decided to go into the Globe first and take a look at where Shakespeare wrote and performed some of the best known literary works of western civilization. We made it as far as the gift shop, as performances were being done in the theater and we weren't willing to buy tickets. On to the Tate.
The Tate Modern is MASSIVE. The building isn't even fully utilized as a museum as three of the seven floors are for other than art. There is currently a Frida Kahlo exihibit on at the museum, but neither Suzanne nor I are huge fans of hers and the tickets are 18 quid each. (Plus we saw her work in San Diego with Diego Rivera's which really is the best way to see the two of them) However, the rest of the musem is free. Great country, the museums are free, but church isn't. We spent a couple of hours viewing works from Dali to Matisse to Picasso to Pollack, Munch, Warhol, etc. I highly recommend the museum, and to think we got to view these works at no cost is amazing.
After leaving the museum, we called to see how my mom was doing. She went in to have her knee surgically repaired yesterday morning and we wanted to make sure she was alright. Thankfully, it looks like everything went well, but her bullheadedness meant that she hobbled about afterwards yesterday and is really sore today. That seems to be a theme with knee surgeries, you are still hopped up on drugs, so you think you can do more than is wise.
Well, now were off to have some Indian food in Notting Hill. YUM... Indian food!
We went to the restaurant in Notting Hill that we visited when we were here in May. The Standard Indian. Great food at a great price. I had a Lamb Vindaloo that was a perfect blend of hot and tasty and my Nan was stuffed with spicy mutton. Suzanne had a Chicken Curry with Garlic Nan. She was very happy with her selection. When all you wonderful people (is there even any one reading this thing?) come to visit the Standard Indian is a definite must. I will try to do a better job of mentioning where we eat from now on so that I can remember and my loyal following (yeah right!) can get insight into great places to eat.
We decided to walk across the Milleneum Bridge and head towards The Globe and the Tate Modern. As is typical of the two of us, we headed in exactly the wrong direction and ended up walking about three times as far as we needed to, but eventually got to the bridge. The Thames is a wonderfully murky brown river that sparkles with floating garbage. In fact, right next to the bridge is a floating trash can that apparently collects more than 40 tons of garbage right out of the beautiful river every year. That amounts to 800,000 plastic bottles! The bridge itself is a really neat pedestrian bridge that is very industrial in design and appearance. From the bridge you can see the a juxtaposition of old and new everywhere. Doric columns and steel cable are side by side all down the river. This juxtaposition is exemplified by the end of the bridge where the Tate Modern sits right next to the Globe.
We decided to go into the Globe first and take a look at where Shakespeare wrote and performed some of the best known literary works of western civilization. We made it as far as the gift shop, as performances were being done in the theater and we weren't willing to buy tickets. On to the Tate.
The Tate Modern is MASSIVE. The building isn't even fully utilized as a museum as three of the seven floors are for other than art. There is currently a Frida Kahlo exihibit on at the museum, but neither Suzanne nor I are huge fans of hers and the tickets are 18 quid each. (Plus we saw her work in San Diego with Diego Rivera's which really is the best way to see the two of them) However, the rest of the musem is free. Great country, the museums are free, but church isn't. We spent a couple of hours viewing works from Dali to Matisse to Picasso to Pollack, Munch, Warhol, etc. I highly recommend the museum, and to think we got to view these works at no cost is amazing.
After leaving the museum, we called to see how my mom was doing. She went in to have her knee surgically repaired yesterday morning and we wanted to make sure she was alright. Thankfully, it looks like everything went well, but her bullheadedness meant that she hobbled about afterwards yesterday and is really sore today. That seems to be a theme with knee surgeries, you are still hopped up on drugs, so you think you can do more than is wise.
Well, now were off to have some Indian food in Notting Hill. YUM... Indian food!
We went to the restaurant in Notting Hill that we visited when we were here in May. The Standard Indian. Great food at a great price. I had a Lamb Vindaloo that was a perfect blend of hot and tasty and my Nan was stuffed with spicy mutton. Suzanne had a Chicken Curry with Garlic Nan. She was very happy with her selection. When all you wonderful people (is there even any one reading this thing?) come to visit the Standard Indian is a definite must. I will try to do a better job of mentioning where we eat from now on so that I can remember and my loyal following (yeah right!) can get insight into great places to eat.
posted by Unknown at 10:41 AM
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