Swinging London

It's al posting today - Dawn has agreed to let me share in the blogging! But, just to keep you on your toes, we won't normally give you a heads up on who's who. This post is kind of long, because dawn has never let me blog before, and because there's so much to say about this place.


We're still here in swinging London! I've never been here before (work doesn't count) so Dawn has been leading me around showing me the sights. We're staying at a cool little hotel called the Zetter that my cousin Stephanie told us about. She's an architect and lived here for a year or so; I'm not sure exactly what she did, but I assume she designed most of the cool buildings in London. The Zetter is a boutiquey little place, and I really like it, but it is also one of those places where form and function did battle, and function lost. It's been a challenge figuring out how to make the shower go, how to make the lights do what I want, and how to accommodate the blankets so they work for a tall guy. But I've got it now.

The location has been a great place for exploring the city. I like to just walk around and take it in. The crazy traffic, the accents, the history. There's these little plaques all over telling you that this building was the Portuguese embassy in 1640, or that Benjamin Disraeli lived here, or that here William Wallace was drawn and quartered, or that in this market men used to sell off their wives if things didn't work out. We saw how much better the buckingham palace Canada gate is compared to the Australia gate. Dawn explained that the queen was at the palace, because the flag was flying. I thought we should get a picture with her, but I guess you need an appointment. Here's about what would have been:


Spent a bunch of time at the prince Albert memorial (across from the hall which I know about because of the Beatles song). I guess queen Victoria really loved the guy; it's quite a place:


We overheard some people jogging past describing how the marble carvings all around the base are historical figures that Albert admired. The carvings are grouped by location and genre: here are the engineering ones, they're really something to see:


The city is filled with art galleries and museums, and all free. We saw the Rosetta stone, and all the amazing ancient egyptian and Greek artifacts that the British borrowed. Lots of paintings that looked old and cool. Today we went to the Tate modern, which was a bit edgier. I felt like I got about 60% of it. Like this painting, from Mondrian's not-weird phase I totally like


Most of the straight up paintings, even the weirder cubist and surreal stuff, seemed like art to me. Even stuff like this bunch of wavy lines I can see making a case for


But some stuff was just beyond me. I thought the lamest was by Baldwin and ramsden, who in 1965, stapled a mirror onto a hunk of wood and called it good


Something about art and windows and blah blah blah. Wonder if they got paid for that? Maybe it just shows my lack of sophistication; my rural Canadian roots showing through.

And that was London. Loved it, can't wait to come back!

Location:London