The Victoria and Albert Museum
I just have to say that I have no idea how people who know they're only going to be here for a week (or less!) decide what to see. AHHH.
Anyway, so, after class on Monday I decided I wanted to visit the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, so I dragged a friend along with me. It's not far from my school, and they had just opened some new Medieval and Renaissance galleries. Once again, there were a lot of pieces involving Jesus and Mary... I saw some HUGE altar pieces, and some really pretty stained glass. There were lots of people there sketching some of the statues. The statue of Narcissus was kind of popular...which was kind of ironic. I'm also pretty sure I found the holy grail (they had a big display of chalices and whatnot).
From there we looked at exhibits from Japan and China. I found out that traditional Japanese costumes don't have pockets, so they used these tiny boxes that were shaped like adorable creatures (like owls) to carry things...like tobacco. They also had a display of traditional Chinese armor, which was kind of bizarre because the armor had feet and a nose and mustache attached to it, but no arms or face....
We also got to see parts of an exhibit called "Decode," including a piece called "Audience" that included 65 small mirrors that sensed when you were looking at them and turned to "return your gaze." Freaky.
Monday night I went to a free concert with some friends, and it was great! It was in a small music store, and the band was great live. (The band was Fool's Gold. I'm a great promoter).
Tuesday we went to the British Library in place of our regular History of Photography class because they had an exhibit on...the history of photography! I didn't know that "spirit photography" was so big back then--pictures that people messed with to make it seem like ghosts were around (and people believed them because photos didn't lie!!!). I'll definitely go back to that place, though...they have a really old version of the Magna Carta, and some original stuff from the Beatles, like manuscripts and hand-written lyrics. The rest of the day was eaten by classes (and another very quick meeting with the group I met last week).
Today (Wednesday) I went down to Piccadilly Circus and wandered around for a while and eventually made it to the photo gallery I wanted to see. I walked back and forth past it a few times because it was completely empty and I couldn't tell if it was open, then the last time I went to walk past it, the cleaning lady opened the door at exactly the right time for me to walk into it (which is typical...but also more embarrassing considering that there are 10 trillion cameras all around London, Big Brother style), and for some reason I took that as a sign to go inside. It was supposed to be an exhibition of photos of human emotion...but honestly, at the risk of sounding whatever, they were just kind of weird. The gallery was on Savile Row, which is famous for making mens' suits. So...there were a lot of men in suits on that road. I also stopped in the National Geographic store and saw more wildlife photography....which was much better than the other photos I'd seen.
Exciting upcoming events include: a backstage tour of the National Theatre (tomorrow), seeing another play, the weekend trip to Stonehenge and Bath, getting a tour of Parliament AND meeting a member of Parliament (!!!!!)...etc!!!! I also officially bought my plane tickets for travel week--Spain (y el sol) here I come! Well, in a month.
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