Odds and Ends

This past weekend was our last opportunity to site-see together. Naturally, on Saturday we set a prioritized agenda of things we definitely didn't want to miss. Then we checked our London guide book and discovered that everything we wanted to do costs money. We then cut our list to ONE thing we were willing to pay for. All of a sudden most of the things on our list didn't seem so important. From the picture you see here, Westminster Abby made the cut. It's a good thing we cut so many other sites because we spent most of the day in here. It's hard to believe how long Westminster Abby has been around! Every ruler of the UK has been crowned and buried here going back to the 11th century! We saw the tomb of Edward the Longshanks. We were pretty excited about that considering our favorite movie is Braveheart. We were not disappointed with our choice for the day!

On Sunday, not knowing how to get back to the C of C we went to last weekend, we visited a church that was recommended to us that is actually quite close to the museum where Scott is working. We enjoyed the service, but we miss our home church back in Iowa. We then headed down the street to the Science museum. We walked around in there for a couple of hours, and then we just decided we were too tired to do any other site seeing. The rest of the day we spent lazing about -- it was nice.

On Monday afternoon, I enjoyed a trip to the Tate Britain museum. After that, I met Scott after work and we took the tube to Waterloo. There we ate some pub grub and headed to the Waterloo bridge to watch the sunset. We had a great view of London, and a great night out.

Tuesday, I enjoyed the afternoon at the National Gallery. This was a memorable visit for me. Courtesy of a Rick Steves London book, I took my own tour and saw so many great famous paintings. Some of these included paintings by Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Van Gogh and more! I was in art history heaven! They don't let you take pictures in that museum, so I have none to include here. :( After work, Scott and I needed to go to the train station to book our chunnel tickets out of London. Once we did that we had a chance to look around. It's a beautiful station. We had some good fish and chips there for dinner, and I took this picture with a statue while we were there. We had a nice time. :)

This brings me to today. Today I realized that I am just about museumed out. After some debate, I ended up back at the V&A. I had a scone and some tea at the cafe while I read "Pride and Prejudice With Zombies" (thanks Jerry it's great!). When I was done I was ready to see more. Today I saw the fashion exhibit, and one of the British history exhibits. Here are some highlights. Fashion: work by Prada, Westwood, Versaci etc including the work of the 2008 graduates of the Royal College of Art; British history: lots of beautiful old furniture (and other things that I wasn't quite as interested in). The more I go to the V&A museum the more I like it. It has a vast variety of things to see, something for everyone if you will, and there exhibits are accessible, informative, and just look great! In my limited world travel experiences I think its my favorite museum ever. Although it is not topped by the Corcorin's exhibit on modernism that I saw in DC.

Tomorrow, I am planning to visit the Borough Market, and St. Paul's. All too soon, Scott and I will be cleaning and packing up to go to Leiden. I am looking forward to it, but as all the other places I've been I will be sorry to leave London. Until next time...