Sorry for the delay in posts. Technically I could have gone to Starbucks to upload stuff, but really, when you're in Europe who wants to go there? Besides, its' awfully hard to write posts on my itty-bitty iPod keyboard. No photos yet, either . . . must organize them first!
Got home later than expected, actually--my flight back to Hamburg was delayed three hours due to stormy weather in western Germany, so I got up at 5 am for a flight that left at 12 noon. It was frustrating to sit in the airport for so long, only because I kept thinking of how much more walking I could have done in London, or of how I would have been able to go to printmaking class if I'd gotten home sooner. At least I got some painting done while I was sitting in the terminal . . . I actually did a lot of watercoloring while I was in London, and I think I'm finally starting to really get a feel for it, which is great!
Anyway, I left off after my loooong walking tour on Friday. So on Saturday morning I got up at 7 (be proud of me, Joanna, I was up by 7:15 every day! I think my excitement at being in London gave me extra energy, because I pretty much maxed out each day and got about 6 hours of sleep every night, and I wasn't tired). The breakfast room downstairs was packed when I sat down with my Weetabix and milk. There were people of all ages (quite a few French tourists in particular, and some Germans as well) and a few English school groups who were there on overnight field trips (upper-elementary or junior-high level mostly). This hostel was part of YHA (Youth Hostel Association) and was a lot different than the one in Paris--much more friendly and welcoming. It was really great to see families with little kids all the way up to elderly couples staying there and all crammed together at the breakfast tables. My hostel in Paris wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't have the family vibe like this one had.
When I'd finished eating, I hopped on the Underground and went to Trafalgar Square to visit the National Gallery. It turned out the museum didn't open till 10, not at 9 as I had thought. So I spent the hour or so having a peek inside the Church of St-Martin-in-the-Fields and then drawing in the square. It was actually quite peaceful for the first half hour or so. London's tourist sights are pretty much a 10-to-5 thing, and during that time window is when everybody is out trying to go everywhere. So until 9:30 or 9:45, Trafalgar Square was actually a mellow place. Just a little before 10, the sky got thick with clouds and people started flocking into the square, and right on the dot at 10 o' clock, big fat drops came down and it started to pour. Literally right at the moment the museum opened its doors. If that wasn't God's perfect timing, I don't know what was. I was able to zip inside without getting soaked! (By the way, Dad, you were definitely right about those sudden, heavy English downpours!)
I intended to be done with the museum by 1, but there was just so much to see. I ended up being there until around 3 in the afternoon. It was really a great museum, and even though it was crowded, I enjoyed it thoroughly. They had Monet's Japanese Bridge with Water Lilies, Van Gogh's Artist's Chair and Sunflowers, Seurat's Bathers at Asnières, van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding, Vermeer's two paintings of the ladies standing and sitting at the virginal harpsichord, Constable's The Hay Wain, Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode series, and even Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche! There were also a lot of other paintings I recognized that I had either seen in Mom and Dad's big French Impressionism book or had studied in school, and works by Botticelli, Titian, Rubens, Raphael, Turner, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Delacroix, and Velázquez. An art lover's treasure trove! I drew from some of the paintings, so that was part of the reason I was in there for so long. It was really great--I especially loved the Impressionist and Grand Manner stuff!
After I finally emerged from the museum and had a late lunch of pre-packaged crumpets and an apple from Sainsbury's (and some much-needed water), I set off to walk to the Bloomsbury neighborhood, since the rain was gone by then and it was a nice sunny afternoon. I went up Charing Cross Street and popped into the bookshops along the way, but tried not to linger too long because I wanted to try to get to the Charles Dickens House before it closed at 5. (Honestly, every day in London is like a race against time to get everything done before 5.) I skirted the edge of Soho on the way up the street and passed the British Museum on my way into the heart of Bloomsbury It wasn't quite closing time yet, and there is no mandatory admission fee, so I zipped inside the museum to use the bathroom and see if I could get a quick peek at the Rosetta Stone and Parthenon pediment sculptures. But unfortunately I was just a bit too late, and right as I beelined into the gallery I was stopped by a guard who told me the museum was closing for the day. After jostling through the crowds flooding towards the exit and getting back outside, I decided I needed to get away from all the tourists for a while. (Traveling alone sometimes makes me get extra-annoyed at large groups of people, and I think I get in a sort of bad attitude when I'm in tourist areas too long.) So I just wandered around and explored some of the garden squares in Bloomsbury. Lots of ritzy hotels in that area so the streets aren't much to look at, but the squares are nice. I also did a very fast drop-in to the Great Ormond Children's Hospital to ask if they had information about the history of the hospital. I started writing a story a while back about Victorian London, and I'll confess a lot of my tripping around Bloomsbury, Holborn, and the general central-east part of the city was for research purposes. It really did help a lot to walk around and get a feel for the area--I have a much better idea now of how the story should be set up, just based on what I saw and learned (even though Victorian London is now more than a hundred years in the past). Anyway, the lady at the hospital told me to check out their website for all the historical info. Which I did later, and I learned from it that J.M. Barrie sold all the rights to Peter Pan to the hospital in order to provide it with continuous income for research and treatments. So Mom, I didn't get to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, but I did see the one outside the Children's Hospital! (Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it because I didn't realize its significance at the time . . .)
When I finally wound my way around to the Dickens House, it was after 5 and it was closed. But I had a map for a self-guided walking tour of Dickens' London that I had picked up at the visitor information center near my hostel, and the weather was nice and I wasn't hungry for dinner just yet. So since the walking tour started at the Dickens House, I took out the map brochure and started walking.
It took me a couple of hours to finish the tour, because I was constantly stopping to take photos and I also stopped for a dinner break along the way. It was really fun though, and almost a bit spooky because it was the weekend and most of it went through what is now business districts, so everything was deserted. East Central London on weekends is COMPLETELY different from how it is on weekdays. The streets which are normally crammed with commuters and taxis and buses are weirdly empty, and most of the food places are closed, so it's almost like a ghost town. (The following day, Sunday, I found out where the people all go: to the parks and the restaurants.) Anyway, the first part of the Dickens tour took me through the sort of in-between-districts strip northwest of St. Paul's where a few parts of Bleak House and most of Oliver Twist were set. Of course the area looks very different now, since it's over 150 years later, and the notorious Field Lane (where Fagin's den is supposed to be in Oliver Twist) has been renamed and is in the jewelry manufacturers' district, but it was still very cool. With the streets being so empty, and still fairly plain and narrow, it was still possible to imagine, just a little, what the area might have been like in the early 1800s when it was one of the worst neighborhoods in London. A lot more crowded, dirty, scary, and especially smelly!
At the bottom of what used to be Field Lane, I saw a Tesco Express and zipped inside to grab something for dinner. Turned out that almost all their to-go stuff was on clearance because the sell-by dates were the next day, so I got a falafel-and-couscous salad and an egg-and-cress sandwich for £1.03. And when I ate them a bit further on, they were really delicious. Double score!
The next part of the walking tour took me southeast towards Smithfield Market, where Sykes takes Oliver on market day in Oliver Twist. Long ago it was open-air, but now it has a roof. I wasn't able to walk through the market zone though, because there was some kind of a big cycling event going on there. They had a racing route set up all around and through the market, and people were packed at the bike rack fences, yelling and ringing cowbells. I stopped for a few minutes to watch. The race was with penny-farthing bicycles--those old-fashioned things with a giant wheel in the front and a teeny-weeny wheel in back! It was really cool. The crowd was so energetic and excited. I saw the riders do their victory lap at the end, and then another race started with regular bicycles, at which point I continued on my walking route. I stopped by the Old Bailey, the big courthouse that now stands where the notorious Newgate Prison used to stand, to eat my salad and sandwich. Perfect weather, street was fairly quiet because of the weekend, and the food tasted awesome. I'm serious, after that I was dead sold on Tesco Express. You know the Brits are the masters of the sandwich when they can make pre-made to-go supermarket sandwiches taste that good.
After that I continued my walk to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the oldest hospital in London (and in Europe!), and then down through a couple other streets further east where some addresses were located that pertained to Dickens' personal life. The tour also was supposed to go by St. Paul's, but I saved that for the end since I was going back there anyway, and finished by looping past the Royal Exchange and Bank to Cornhill, a street which plays roles in A Christmas Carol, The Pickwick Papers and Our Mutual Friend. It was dark by the time I got back, and I was tired, but it was a really fun day.
I haven't got my photos even close to organized yet, so you'll have to hold on for those. Sorry! I promise there will be photos for you Dickens fans out there! More about London tomorrow. Teaser: I went to the Tower of London.
Hung out with Indra while I was unpacking this afternoon. Also had my "now I officially feel like a college dorm resident" moment. Indra and I both had to do laundry so we went down to the laundry room together, and my hands were full with my laundry bundle and detergent and coins. So Indra took my key, which was tied onto my belt loop by its lanyard, out of my pocket and unlocked the laundry room door with it while she balanced all her stuff in her other arm. I kept having to scoot closer to the door so she could reach the lock, and we finally pushed the door open and kind of fell inside it with all our laundry bundles. It was so funny--just the shared experience of doing laundry and trying to get the door unlocked with one of my apartment mates was SUCH a college moment . . .
Speaking of which, I need to go get my stuff out of the dryer. And then take a shower. And then sleep. In that order.
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