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dear_prudenceall that remains in the great travel log is to fill you in on what we got up to on our last few days in london...
one of the main things we were looking forward to at the v&a were the tea rooms. we had heard much of their splendor and were keen to see for ourselves:
they were indeed very beautiful, and we ate well there (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nixwilliams discovered the joy of the pot pie, and i had one of the best meringues i have ever eaten). thus fortified we took ourselves off to explore the actual museum...
daniel_bethany wanted to take the whole musical instrument section home with him. i'm pretty sure nixwilliams would have been a willing partner in that crime!. i don't blame him - it was a musician's dream! there were ornate examples of guitars, lutes, pianos and harps, a glass flute, and a whole lot of instruments whose function we could only guess at.
my favourite sections were the jewelry ( a treasure trove of delights, where photography was prohibited), and the fashion gallery
it was particularly dimly lit (i suspect to preserve the delicate fabrics), so i didn't take anywhere near as many photos as i would have liked, but there were so many exquisite pieces in there, from wedding dresses to underwear. unsurprisingly, the era i was most enchanted by was the 1920s to 1930s.
tins! (photo fro my mummy)
another cool thing we saw was in a gigantic room with a high walkway from which you could look from above on either side. on one side was an immense collection of stone pillars, graves and tombs, statues and carvings that you could go to the ground floor and walk among after observing them from above. on the other you could look down and see the museum staff working on restoring various pieces from the collection:
it was so cool!
the next day saj and i went for another jaunt in the city. we went to trafalgar square, saw lord nelson, and concluded that he must have been compensating for something:
then we went to the national portrait gallery
there were so many interesting interpretations of what a portrait actually is, and such a broad representation of how that has evolved through history. it was also interesting to see how the subjects of the paintings changed (from aristocrats and politicians to actors and athletes, with many others in between)
after that adventure we met up withdaniel_bethany and nixwilliams and went to have drinks, CHIPS, and camden-shopping with a friend called lisa (who saj used to work with at acmi, but who now lives in london).
the next day saj went to essex to educate some chavs, anddaniel_bethany and nixwilliams and i went to the museum of natural history.
it was one of the coolest places i have ever been.
all these little humming birds were in a much bigger case. i had such mixed feelings standing there looking at it. i was awed by the dedication of the person who had collected them, and preserved them all so carefully, but i was horrified at the same time. they were beautiful creatures.
this is just one corridor of the nhm herbarium. i just about peed myself when i saw it. do you know every one of those cupboards is stacked full of samples of flowers and plants from all over the world. they are all carefully labelled and stored on paper sheets in cardboard folders. i could have explored there for an eternity. but i didn't because we walked along these corridors to get to the library where we were to view some 300 year old botanical drawings. i got to handle them (wearing gloves of course), so i didn't take photos, butnixwilliams did, and when he uploads them i will make a special post for them.
on the way back through those corridors of cupboards i came across a curator who was peering at specimens through a microscope. i made some comment about it looking very interesting, he noticed my accent and got excited, took the three of us over to one ofthe many hundreds of cupboards and pulled out a particular folder.
inside, was a banksia, collected by the joseph banks, in botany bay, in 1770. we stood there in awe. that actual plant in front of us was growing in australia hundreds of years ago. it had been collected by one of the most famous botanists in the world. and it was sitting right there in front of us. awe inspiring.
i was indulged in a trip to harrods after that, and was far too busy looking at the shiny things to take many photos - i couldn't resist this pearler of an opportunity, though:
klassy.
the next day we went back into the city again. this time the others went to the borough mrkets and did gross things lik eat cheese and brownies and buy teacups. i went to see 'shakespeare's globe' (which, of course, was not shakespeare's actual globe, but a reconstruction). i took a tour, on which i was told very little that i didn't already know, but it was very amusing to be shown around the theatre and to imagine a smelly, bawdy crowd of elizabethan sensation-seekers in place of the reverent american tourists.
and that's where the photos run out. the last day of the trip, while involving a lovely walk at hampstead heath, was a busy one involving packing and organising and planning etc, so i was too distracted to get ye olde pikture-clicker out.
thanks for reading my rants. i hope you had some vicarious fun!
*smishes*
one of the main things we were looking forward to at the v&a were the tea rooms. we had heard much of their splendor and were keen to see for ourselves:
they were indeed very beautiful, and we ate well there (
nixwilliams discovered the joy of the pot pie, and i had one of the best meringues i have ever eaten). thus fortified we took ourselves off to explore the actual museum...daniel_bethany wanted to take the whole musical instrument section home with him. i'm pretty sure nixwilliams would have been a willing partner in that crime!. i don't blame him - it was a musician's dream! there were ornate examples of guitars, lutes, pianos and harps, a glass flute, and a whole lot of instruments whose function we could only guess at.my favourite sections were the jewelry ( a treasure trove of delights, where photography was prohibited), and the fashion gallery
it was particularly dimly lit (i suspect to preserve the delicate fabrics), so i didn't take anywhere near as many photos as i would have liked, but there were so many exquisite pieces in there, from wedding dresses to underwear. unsurprisingly, the era i was most enchanted by was the 1920s to 1930s.
tins! (photo fro my mummy)
another cool thing we saw was in a gigantic room with a high walkway from which you could look from above on either side. on one side was an immense collection of stone pillars, graves and tombs, statues and carvings that you could go to the ground floor and walk among after observing them from above. on the other you could look down and see the museum staff working on restoring various pieces from the collection:
it was so cool!
the next day saj and i went for another jaunt in the city. we went to trafalgar square, saw lord nelson, and concluded that he must have been compensating for something:
then we went to the national portrait gallery
there were so many interesting interpretations of what a portrait actually is, and such a broad representation of how that has evolved through history. it was also interesting to see how the subjects of the paintings changed (from aristocrats and politicians to actors and athletes, with many others in between)
after that adventure we met up with
daniel_bethany and nixwilliams and went to have drinks, CHIPS, and camden-shopping with a friend called lisa (who saj used to work with at acmi, but who now lives in london). the next day saj went to essex to educate some chavs, and
daniel_bethany and nixwilliams and i went to the museum of natural history.it was one of the coolest places i have ever been.
all these little humming birds were in a much bigger case. i had such mixed feelings standing there looking at it. i was awed by the dedication of the person who had collected them, and preserved them all so carefully, but i was horrified at the same time. they were beautiful creatures.
this is just one corridor of the nhm herbarium. i just about peed myself when i saw it. do you know every one of those cupboards is stacked full of samples of flowers and plants from all over the world. they are all carefully labelled and stored on paper sheets in cardboard folders. i could have explored there for an eternity. but i didn't because we walked along these corridors to get to the library where we were to view some 300 year old botanical drawings. i got to handle them (wearing gloves of course), so i didn't take photos, but
nixwilliams did, and when he uploads them i will make a special post for them.on the way back through those corridors of cupboards i came across a curator who was peering at specimens through a microscope. i made some comment about it looking very interesting, he noticed my accent and got excited, took the three of us over to one ofthe many hundreds of cupboards and pulled out a particular folder.
inside, was a banksia, collected by the joseph banks, in botany bay, in 1770. we stood there in awe. that actual plant in front of us was growing in australia hundreds of years ago. it had been collected by one of the most famous botanists in the world. and it was sitting right there in front of us. awe inspiring.
i was indulged in a trip to harrods after that, and was far too busy looking at the shiny things to take many photos - i couldn't resist this pearler of an opportunity, though:
klassy.
the next day we went back into the city again. this time the others went to the borough mrkets and did gross things lik eat cheese and brownies and buy teacups. i went to see 'shakespeare's globe' (which, of course, was not shakespeare's actual globe, but a reconstruction). i took a tour, on which i was told very little that i didn't already know, but it was very amusing to be shown around the theatre and to imagine a smelly, bawdy crowd of elizabethan sensation-seekers in place of the reverent american tourists.
and that's where the photos run out. the last day of the trip, while involving a lovely walk at hampstead heath, was a busy one involving packing and organising and planning etc, so i was too distracted to get ye olde pikture-clicker out.
thanks for reading my rants. i hope you had some vicarious fun!
*smishes*
