Where Am I?

Figuring things out.

I did not have much time these past weeks to read up on things London, so today was a nice day to get my bearings on the city. London hardly follows any sort of grid plan, and the thing with driving on the left is bound to create some confusion (I am looking both ways about five times before I even put a toe over the curb around here) – but made some progress.

Jet lag seems to be passing ok. Woke up very early as my travel companion had a “math problem” in setting her cell phone alarm – something about adding or subtracting five – but actually it was pretty hard to drag myself out of bed even at 8:30. Breakfast was a nice reward. It’s obviously included in the bed&breakfast idea, but it was good – nice croissant, eggs and Cumberland sausage, good black tea, marmalade, oj – all the things you might want from the English treatment.

We headed out on a journey by Underground down to the Tate Modern, although those trains were pretty slow today. As we poked up out of the hole and wandered down toward the millennium bridge we got distracted by the wonders of St. Pauls. In the end that turned out to be a more athletic event than religious and we climbed up the three series of ever narrower spiral staircases up to the very top of the dome. The views were magnificent and I got some nice photos there.

We only got to the Tate Modern in the afternoon – we grabbed a bit of lunch at some chain French café – a sandwich and a bowl of cappuccino. I gather the Rothko’s which are the big item there have been moved over to the Tate Britain – but we enjoyed a few galleries of contemporaries and abstract expressionism. The latter galleries were my favorites. They had some nice pieces of Jackson Pollock (Summertime) and a large panel of Monet’s water lilies. It was a nice visit – not my favorite chunks of the Western artistic tradition but it was fun to get some idea of what they were up to in their various ways as they rooted out and upset absolutely any kind of expectation one might bring to art. The last gallery involved things painted in blood which had (mercifully) faded to grey over the years. That was about my limit. I am looking forward to seeing the Turners over at the Tate Britain – maybe Wednesday as I think the British museum is on the itinerary for tomorrow.

It was fun walking around the Thames and downtown today. After the Tate we walked up and down Bankside a bit and grabbed a bus that took us down to the London Eye (the really huge Ferris wheel) and over across the Waterloo Bridge into the Strand and the theater district. We strolled through Covent Garden market and then got on one or two wrong buses (or buses going in the wrong direction) but, no matter, it was nice to check things out. We finally did make it back to Oxford Street and down Gloucester Place to the hotel. Found a nice neighborhood restaurant right here for dinner and took a stroll around this neighborhood after dinner. I spied two or three interesting pubs that might merit a second look.

The architecture of the city is really neat – an odd mix of old and really modern work. Especially downtown it seem every other building is trying to put the old stuff behind it with bulging curves of glass, metal skins and all manner of other odd features. It’s also fun to wander into these places I’ve heard about all my life but never actually seen (Bloomsbury, Blackfriars Bridge, Soho, The Strand, St. Martin’s in the Field, Covent Garden…).

So, I am happily being a tourist with an ever clicking camera and sore feet.

Photo: St. Paul’s figure from the door of the south entrance. The church was built after the fire in 1666, thus the Phoenix and the motto. I’ll also post a few pictures of the view from the the dome.