7.21.09 London

Our first stop for the day was Sir John Sloane’s museum house. We broke up into two groups since the house can’t fit our entire group. The Sir John was an architect in the 1800’s and had an affinity for classical architecture such as seen in Rome. He designed his house to specifically reflect that style and actually set it up to be a museum before he even died and ordered it stay that way forever – and it has. They have only restored things and haven’t replaced a thing. Sir John had a very unique and interesting style and loved mirrors of every kind; full length, entire mirror walls and convex mirrors everywhere. Seriously there are little bubble mirrors stuck on the fireplace, over archways and placed in hallways. He loved to collect things at auctions and displayed all of his finds in very interesting ways. There is a square room covered in original paintings and each wall opens up to more walls of paintings behind. He must have been a very innovative man and the house was very cool to see. Besides the many pots and paintings he collected, the man had a frickin Egyptian sarcophagus in the basement. It was way cool to see but so weird that someone would buy that. I really enjoyed seeing a house instead of a museum because it was a change of scene for a bit.

the british museum.

It was off to the British museum while the other group went to the Sloane house. The British museum is quite large but I was pleasantly surprised to see the ceiling in the main area of the museum because it was designed by Norman Foster and so cool to see. The museum is huge and was hard to take it all in but we hit up the Africa exhibit which was really cool because it was totally different than all the Roman and Greek architecture we’ve seen this trip. I found inspiration from some of the art there for my patterns and went outside to sketch them. Why is it everywhere we go we bring rain? It has pretty much not stopped raining since we got here and today was no exception so sketching became tricky.

ceiling designed by norman foster

rosetta stone. turns out this isn't even the real thing. i was very disappointed.

thank you tennyson for the inspiring thought.

display in african exhibit

coolest shadows

We left the British Museum and headed to St. Paul’s Cathedral. If walls could talk I think I’d like to hear what these walls would have to say. Princess Diana was married here; Winston Churchill’s funeral was also here as well as Princess Di’s funeral. We were able to hike up to the dome where there is the whisper wall. Rumor has it that you can put your ear up against the wall and whisper and someone all the way on the other side can hear you. I never actually got it to work but I did hear other people doing it and it was really cool. I apologize for the lack of photos for the day but it seems that pictures aren’t allowed at some places so that is why.

st. paul's cathedral

had i known i could just come to st. paul's and be in heaven i would have visited much earlier.

After a hard day of museums, it was time to shop! We hit up H&M London style and all came away with some warmer clothes since none of us packed for this bitter London weather. Then it was off to be because tomorrow would come too soon with a meeting time of 5:45 AM. Cheerio!

london wouldn't be london without some sweet double deckers. the candy bar named after these - not so good.