Last night, for a while there, I didn't think that we would just have our neighbor keeping us up but someone in the cafeteria also skyping back home keeping us up. But thankfully, neither of them lasted long and we were able to go to sleep just fine.
This morning, we talked about Nietzsche and, boy, it was painful! I'm not good at starting discussions though I can keep them going once they have started but it seemed like no one knew what to say, so it was like he was trying to pull teeth! It probably didn't help that he immediately interrupted and pointed out we were wrong. Normally, in the discussion I have been in, we discover that eventually though perhaps not right away.
We also got warned to not let Nick go anywhere alone. Poor kid! Apparently he got lost last night and didn't get in until 9:30, just before they lock the gates. The worst part is that a bunch of us saw him but none of us knew he was lost so none of us helped him. It was also good in part though because through other people, they managed to triangulate where he was and guide him back to the Highbury center.
D'Layna and I went to the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain today. Though many of the artwork was very beautiful, it almost felt wrong to take pictures of them. I would rather rely on Google to continue enjoying the pieces. I just could never even come close to doing them justice! It was primarily in the Tate Britain that I loved the pieces. In the Tate Modern, they were just too modern and we couldn't find all of the ones that he told us to find. One of the ones that I loved to see live was Dante Gabriel Rosetti's "Lady of Shalott". I have seen it in so many books and to see it in person was breathtaking.
There was a lot of nudity in the Tate Britain though so I had difficulty to look past it to see what I was supposed to be looking at. The most awkward by far though was "Ecstasy" by Eric Gill. Let me just say that though there was nudity of both genders in that one, we couldn't see much of it in the sculpture. That should give you some idea of what was going on. We also saw some of Pablo Picasso's work in the Tate Modern so that was pretty awesome though I don't particularly like him. In his piece, "Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle", I could see the violin when I squinted though nothing else.
We had to go on a Riverbus though to get from the Tate Britain to the Tate Modern and back (Tate to Tate riverbus). It was on that trip that I was particularly struck by the difference between America and England. In America, everyone is amazed by the buildings from before the Civil War and is all about preserving them. In London, there are buildings there that were built before Columbus came to America! And they are so calm about it! This particularly struck me when I saw statues on the one bridge.
Where can you see that here? But to emphasize how old the city is alone, is to miss how new it can be also. There was this one area near the St. George Wharf where there were these beautiful, ultra modern, ultra new buildings.
The entire city is in a seemingly constant state of having buildings added and removed and repaired. I have never seen so many cranes in so many different place at once.
In this picture alone, I could spot at least six cranes at work! But despite the beauty of London, there is still some ugliness. On the Thames, there seemed to be abandoned riverboats all up and down it, or if not abandoned, at least forgotten for a while, until better weather.
Today though, I saw the Globe Theatre. I was so excited that D'Layna was just giving me these looks as if I had gone crazy! And perhaps I had. But we are going in tomorrow and I plan to get a souvenir from there! Just because it is the Globe!
We also saw some people who were playing with these large bubble strings and a man who was pretending to be a statue for some money. It was pretty cool how it looked like he was standing perfectly still on nothing, but I already knew how he was doing it so it wasn't that impressive. Still cool though! I gave him a pound rather than some pence though because I still didn't completely understand the money system. But you can see people trying to earn some money by playing music everywhere though.
Life is good here so far. We had left over curry for lunch today because they gave us so much. The one woman was trying to fatten me up because of how skinny I was! I couldn't quite get her to understand though that I couldn't eat anymore and I was full. And for dinner today, they gave us a large slice of apple crumble for desert. It was all just so good! There's just too much to do in so little time!
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