Trekking Around London

On Saturday, Roni and I headed into beautiful Londontown for the day. My friend James was heading home to Australia the next day so we had planned to meet up that afternoon. Roni and I got into Paddington around 11:00 and walked over to the Wallace Collection. According to the Wallace Collection website, the Wallace Collection "is both a national museum and the finest private collection of art ever assembled by one family. It was bequeathed to the nation by Lady Wallace, widow of Sir Richard Wallace, in 1897, and opened to the public just over three years later on 22 June 1900. Its first visitors were variously delighted, amazed and bemused. Among its treasures are one of the best collections of French 18th-century pictures, porcelain and furniture in the world, a remarkable array of 17th-century paintings and a superb armoury."


And that is definitely true. There was some incredible artwork, including Fragonard's "The Swing", some beautiful porcelain vases in incredible shades of pink, green and blue, and of course, four huge rooms full of European and Middle Eastern armories- guns, pistols, suits of armor, swords, sabres, it was pretty awesome. Mostly because you got to try some of it on :)

I wonder if knights ever wore red and white polka dotted boots? :)
After the Wallace Collection, we walked down past Hyde Park through Knightsbridge, the swankiest part of town- home to Harrods, Burberry, Armani, Jigsaw, H&M, all the high end shops. After a slight detour down Fulham Road (and passing the crocodiles swimming in the forecourt of the Lacoste Store), we made it ot the Victoria and Albert Museum.


Roni headed off with Brian and Kristen and I went straight to the sculpture corridor to do some sketching. The statue below I had remember seeing and sketching in my London sketchbook four and a half years ago, although I had seen that one at the Tate Modern, right next to Rodin's "The Kiss."

I also popped by the upper floor of the casts room, being able to see into the closed cast room, which housed a cast model of Michelangelo's David. This was taken from across the room and zoomed in- it's actually 17 feet high!

I only had about two hours in the V&A so I headed over to the Theatre Exhibition which walked us through the process of putting on a show- from production and writing the show, costumes, set, casting, advertising, etc. There were so many fascinating things, including a great guilt-trip sign, amazing costumes and one of Shakespeare's folios.

James and I met up outside the V&A and started our trek across London. We walked up Exhibition to Hyde Park and then down the park, past Green Park, and up Piccadilly, past the Royal Academy of Art, Burlington Arcade, the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, all the was up to Piccadilly. The middle of the city was absolutely packed- it being a Saturday night- and we frequently had to dodge and avoid running into old ladies, five-year-olds, huge packs of Chelsea fast, and just normal people as we battled through Piccadilly Circus and down Cranbourne to Leicester Square. We stopped momentarily to grab something for James to eat since he was starving and then headed down to an Irish pub called Waxy O'Connors. We walked down the stairs and met a sea of people- there was no way to even get past the people to check the other floors. We realized that the Ireland/England rugby match was on- Six Nations weekend was in full swing- and so we left and continued walking another mile (to add to our already trekked two and a half miles) to High Holborn and the Cittie of York Pub.

Cittie of York was recommended to me last summer but was closed when I went back in August so fingers crossed that it was open. The pub was incredible- the drinks were so incredible cheap! Two beers and two juices for under £10. Nice! There were huge big barrels above our heads and apparently the cellar is also really cool but it was closed on the weekends. We weren't lucky enough to get a little booth area but we were in perfect view of one of the lamest hen parties we had ever seen. The bride seemed excited but the other girls certainly didn't and grandma certainly didn't seem excited. Also, half of the party left about half an hour after everyone arrived... hm.... We sat and chatted and drank at the pub, eventually met up with Kristen and Roni and decided ot head over ot the Wetherspoon's down the street for dinner.
At the Wetherspoons, we enjoyed a lovely dinner, watched the same five stories over and over again on Sky News (earthquake in Chile, political issues, Wayne Bridge not shaking John Terry's hand, Aaron Ramsey's broken leg and tsunami warning in Australia and Hawaii- to which James replied, "no big deal, we've got the Great Barrier Reef"). We also, though, had three interesting encounters. First was the large American man living in Bristol who kept joining our conversation (and squeezed behind my chair for no reason whatsoever, seeing as there was plenty of room for him to go the other way around....), the coupe that was making out nonstop in the booth right next to us and of course, Pukey Sue, pictured below. We met her completely passed out at the long counter table just next to us, she later got up and stumbled her way to the door while on her mobile and then, as soon as leaving the pub, ben tover and earned the name Pukey Sue. James went outside a few minutes later and she was gone, so we assume someone came to pick her up. Hopefully someone did....


Despite the little bit of rain in the mroning, overall it was a great day- we had avoided most of the rainstorms, James and I did a lot of walking and seeing the city, we had some great conversations as we walked and had dinner and drinks and of course, we met Pukey Sue. It's been a few weeks since I've been to London and Saturday was definitely a wonderful day!