A Rainy Day in the City

Day 64

The beautiful street where I live. Well, this is Bayswater, which is the street I live off of. Along the right is Kensington Gardens. It's so pretty when it rains and then the sun comes out.I use to the Tube a lot here. I'm really going to miss it.
Today I went for a walk through "the City"--it's the part of London that used to be enclosed by the Roman walls, so it's the oldest part of London. It now forms the center of business and banking.

St. Mary le Bows. Famous for the "bows" (arches) in its architecture, and it's bells. Technically speaking, you couldn't be considered a true Cockney unless you were born within hearing of these bells.
John Smith, of Disney's Pocahontas fame, haha.
Unlike most "Ye Olde Shoppes" in America, Ye Olde Mitre is actually old. This gives you a sense for how narrow London streets used to be in an attempt to squeeze more shops in.

A Tudor style building in London

The Mansion House, home of the Lord Mayor for the past 250 years. Today was the Lord Mayor's paradeDecorations for the parade


Leftover paradersApparently today was the 300 year anniversary of St. Paul's, so they had a carnival going outside, and free admission inside.


I took the rare chance to take pictures inside the cathedral. It was pretty dark and packed, but you can still see how beautiful it is.
They're doing a presentation of Dick Whittington's Cat in honor of Whittington, who was four times the Lord Mayor of London.
That railing is part of the whispering gallery.

A small church designed by Christopher Wren. Many people think this dome was an early version of the one he used on St. Paul's.
Part of a Temple of Mithras dating back to Roman times that was unearthed in the inner city of London.
London's Royal Exchange.
The Royal Exchange has a cricket on top
The "Great Gherkin" is instantly recognizable in the London skyline ("Gherkin" means pickle).
Some unusual architecture.
In classic English fashion, this pub is called The Hung, Drawn, and Quartered.
The Monument. It was designed by Christopher Wren and commemorates the Great Fire.
Several things of note in this picture. First of all, it's taken in a tube station. Obviously, it's underground, so here you can see the escalators taking you up to the surface. Also, the sign, the red circle with a blue bar through it, is the symbol for the underground, and you'll see it with various words like the name of the station, "way out", or "Underground". Also, there are advertisements running up and down on each side. This tube station always makes me laugh, because the left side has the same ad all the way up, and it's the word "pain" exploding.
Dear Katie,
Men in London wear scarves. I would take more pictures of them, but that would be weird since I don't know them. I don't think he noticed.
Today was rather wet, so I did a photo essay for class on rain gear. I thought I'd include it, so you all could enjoy how London keeps dry :)


This is in the front hall of a church where a wedding was going on.

The Arts of Architecture and Dance

Day 45

Monday morning we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was spectacular, maybe even my favorite thing I've seen in London. At this point, you start singing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins.
There's been a church on this site since Saxon times, so basically, a really long time. I believe the current St. Paul's Cathedral is actually the 4th church to be built there, and was designed by Christopher Wren. He's a very famous English architect. It's built in the traditional cross design, with an enormous dome over the center of the cross. During the bombings of WWII, the Cathedral miraculously sustained very little damage, despite the destruction of many of the surrounding buildings. Many of the newspapers ran pictures at the time of the Cathedral dome rising out of smoke, and it became a symbol of hope and fortitude to the British people.

I really enjoyed the architecture. It's huge, obviously, that's the first thing you notice. But the design is also very clean, and unlike Westminster, it's uncluttered. As you're walking up the aisle, the dome opens up above you, and you can see the paintings of prophets and apostles, the statues of popes, and the mosaics of the life of Paul. You can also go up stairs (a lot of stairs) to three levels of galleries. The first level, the Whispering Gallery, is on the level of the paintings and is so named because a speaker whispering on one side can be clearly heard by a listener on the other side (and the diameter is pretty significant). I really enjoyed just sitting up there for awhile. The next level up is the Stone Gallery, which is only open for you to walk around the outside.

Here's a view from the Stone Gallery, which has high stone banisters around the edge. It was cool, but the view gets much better.
The final and highest gallery is the Golden Gallery, which lets you go out and walk around the lantern on top of the dome. The view is incredible. You can walk around and see in every direction out across London, and you can't see the end in any direction. It's quite staggering to think of the millions of people, the millions of lives, that are taking place out there.

St. Paul's is really really high.

That's the Thames in the background. Doesn't look very lovely from here. Though to tell the truth, it doesn't look much better up close. And that does appear to be the Millenium Bridge, which means that the building directly at the end is the Tate Modern, and slightly to the left is the Globe Theatre.

That evening we went to see Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House. It was amazing! I've really gained an appreciation for ballet in the last few years, and these dancers were really very good. We were sitting up in the highest balcony, and from there, it really does all look very effortless and graceful. And Odette did an excellent job of looking like a swan. I didn't even know arms could bend like that. Perhaps I'll have to make ballet-going more of a habit.

What do we do on a Saturday?

Day 43

Today I once again went to a park to read (I might have mentioned I'm trying to see as many parks as I can before it gets too cold). Today I went to Green Park. It's basically the archetypal London park. Grass. Trees. Benches. Lamp posts.


It also borders Buckingham Palace (it's kitty-corner to St. James' Park) which you can see through the trees.
This is a really cool fountain.


So I was trying to get to the St. Paul's tube stop, not realizing it was closed, and when I got to the stop just passed it I thought I'd just missed it while I was reading, so I went across and took the train going back the other way, and of course it didn't stop then either, so I was just very confused until I heard the announcement that St. Paul's was closed. Then I felt pretty dumb for having passed it like 3 times. So I walked from Chancery Lane. When I got to St. Paul's I saw a bride and groom taking pictures outside. I mean, I guess people must get married there, but it's just so huge, it's hard to imagine.
This is St. Paul's
I just thought this looked really cool with all the clouds.
The reason I was trying to get down here anyway was to go to the Tate Modern on the south bank of the Thames. It's an old factory that was converted into a modern art museum (this is the Millenium Bridge I'm crossing).
A view from south of the Thames

The huge spider-plant statue thingy inside the Tate Modern. The yellow and blue things are bunkbed frames. There were a bunch of people just lying on them.
Random apple core statue that apparently you can climb on.
Not really sure.
I couldn't take any pictures of the artwork (obviously) but I did see some cool exhibits that had works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, de Chirico, and some others that I forget at the moment. It was cool, but I can only take so much modern art at a time.

Have I mentioned it's beautiful here?