I can't sleep. Finally, I stop trying around 7 and just get up. I hope this doesn't become a habit.
The promised "traditional English breakfast" apparently doesn't involve any kind of fruit, but it doesn't really matter since my cereal appears to be "ludicrously tasty". I think they might be exaggerating though...
Well, hurray! My first big trip in London and it's on the top of a double decker bus! Ha!
Little kids playing cricket, well, holding cricket bats, anyway...
Big Ben is really huge. I mean, awe inspiring! And guarded by so many men in uniform with big, rapid fire auto weaponry! ...is someone trying to steal big Ben?
The National gallery is really fabulous, but there is no photography allowed. Damnit.
The 1st paintings to really strike me are a quartet, "The allegory of Love". Scorn, unfaithfulness, respect, and happy union. It's the same couple pictured in all of them, but the guy just gets dumped on! Beaten, cheated on, thoroughly teased, then finally, he gets her in the last one, but I can't fathom why he wants her!?
The paintings of St. Jerome all become easily distinguishable, he always has a rock somewhere close by...
There is a painting (I couldn't make this up) called "A grotesque old woman" that seriously looks like an orangutan in a dress. My heart goes out to this lady, who is flawlessly painted in all her ugliness, with a brilliant smile. Painters are so strange.
The painting "the execution of Lady Jane Grey" is really spectacular, a must see in person. You can see the executioner's tights bunch around his knees, and the way the Lady gropes for the executing block just squeezes your heart.
The picture by Reuben, "the massacre of the innocents" almost reduces me to tears. It depicts the soldiers executing Hebrew babies on the order of King Herod (I think?), and this painting pulls no punches in it's quest to show the true horror of it's subject. Brutalized infants, women desperately trying to save their children. An old women bites a solider to protect her grandson. Really terrible, but really moving.
I even manage to work in Piccadilly circus and Buckingham Palace today; too late for the changing of the guard though, maybe another day.
I do get a picture of a bobby standing at the gate, though, who informs me he carries a glock? I think? This man is defending Buckingham palace from what-ever-have-you, carrying a heavy sidearm, wearing a flack vest, aware that he may be called to lay down his life for the queen, and he thinks I'm brave for traveling alone.
Good heavens.
The exchange rate is really putting a damper on my fun though. The prices, number wise, are exactly the same as they would be in Canada, but with the pound symbol instead. I've also discovered what a "quid" is; a pound, in cockney.
I know it's silly, but I didn't know that.
2 comments:
Well, lovely, I didn't know what a quid was either. Nice to know.
Sounds like a terrific day and loved your descriptions of the paintings.
I'd love to hear what the food's been like too, assuming that you've been remembering to eat something other than breakfast!
Has it been rainy? Believe it or not, we had fog this morning; definitely not normal for the middle of summer. I wondered if you were getting the same weather over there.
Can't wait to hear more! Take good care of yourself and take care wherever you go.
LOL mapa
Rain seems to be "di rigour2 for the course here. In morning, but the afternoons usually nice.
I wrote today's post without even reading this comment, so it was just a coincedence that I wrote a bit about the food.
Despite my rant about sandwichs, the food is really lovely! I mean, you can get an Avacado smoked salmon sandwich for £2.50 ( converts to 5$, but compared to other things here, it's about $2.50)
love u both!
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