London, Week 2

I sometimes can’t believe how fast time has been going. But it’s also doing that thing where it seems like the days pass by so fast but then it makes it seem like some things happened so much longer ago than they did.

Anyway, back to that whole London itself thing.

The start of the week wasn’t too busy but we did go to the Tate Britain for the first of a number of visits for my art class. We saw a really interested installation by Anthea Hamilton that combined sculpture, curation, and even performance. For the class, one of our projects is a presentation to be done in front of a painting in the gallery itself. Considering the general lack of ability I normally have to see art like this, that is kind of amazing. Definitely not the PowerPoint presentations we were expecting, at least.

Anthea Hamilton's work

On Wednesday, I went on a bit of adventure on my own. Oxford Street isn’t too far from the dorm I live in and I needed a bag for a trip on Saturday so I headed there. Primark has become one of almost everyone’s favorite stores, and I’m no exception, with the cool items it carries and the low prices. I then continued walking along, as Primark is at the end of Oxford Street you hit walking from the dorm, and stopped in a few other places, including Lush’s huge 3-story flagship location, before making to the British Museum for the first of two visits this week.

British museum front

To say I was a little overwhelmed by the history there is a bit of an understatement. I didn’t even get to see it all before they closed but I did get a chance to go back on Friday with some friends for a little bit and catch the major things I still wanted to check out. Namely, this was the exhibit on Egyptian mummies and the friezes and sculptures from the Parthenon. Seeing that in person was incredible, even I wished they hadn’t move some of it to a paid exhibit about neo-classical art.

The left side of one of the Parthenon's pediments

Friday afternoon those friends and I went to afternoon tea at the Wallace Collection, a smaller but still free art and armor collection. We looked around a little bit before our reservation, but I couldn’t help but feel less welcome here than some other places, unfortunately, since the collection we did see was really interested, especially the armor. The tea itself, however, was very nice and we really enjoyed the experience and might try to go again somewhere else before we leave if we can manage it.

Food from tea

Saturday was definitely one of the highlights of my entire trip so far. Before I even left the States, I had decided I wanted to go on at least a day trip to Brighton, a sort of beach town about an hour outside London by train. I’d considered going to Paris at one point but decided I wanted to spend more time than just a weekend there so I kept my travels to the UK. Luckily, I found three friends who joined me for the day, and we had a pretty amazing time, even if I woke up still a little exhausted today.

First we hit the beach, which was nicely pretty far from crowded since we got in not long after 9 in the morning.

Brighton's beach

Then we hit the pier and the arcade there, where I think we all had a little more than expected.

Palace Pier's arcade

We took a break from the pier for a lunch and a stop at a chocolate shop I’d heard of called Choccywoccydoodah for some heavenly milkshakes.

What a name

We stopped on our walk back to the pier at the Royal Pavilion for a look then went to the back of the pier. We decided, after a bit of debate, to get wristbands that let us ride all the rides there. This ended up being one of the best decisions of the day—we spent the next few hours there had a ton more fun. We capped off the night with another visit to the beach itself and then headed home, very tired but also content.

Walking up to the attractions at the end of the pier