Pic by night86mare
Recently I made my fourth visit to London, this time courtesy of the good folk at CheapOair. (I won a competition that relied on chance and required absolutely no skill. Ego boost activate!)
The trip was of the whirlwind variety — five days — but I still managed to pack in a metric Thames-load of museums, sightseeing and unbridled but culturally contextual binge-drinking. Herewith, some highlights, recommendations, and general jetlag-addled blather.
Museums and galleries
There are some brilliant museums in London, and the vast majority are free. Yep, you don’t have to pay anything to browse the Greek sculptures that Lord Elgin stole carefully and lawfully acquired from the ruins of the Parthenon. Being accustomed to NYC museums like the Met, which makes a very, very strong suggestion that you pay the “donation” of $20, I found this policy rather jarring.
The clump o’ museums along Cromwell Road in Kensington (Natural History Museum; Science Museum; V&A) is well worth a visit. The Darwin Room at the NHM has a bunch of creepy specimens floating in formaldehyde, which you can examine during a private tour. In the Science Museum there are creepy life-size dioramas of 19th century medical procedures. But the best of the bunch is the V&A. Its smartly curated collection features an extraordinary cast court, which has plaster versions of European sculptures, tombs and architectural details. The most impressive is Trajan’s column, built in Rome in AD 113. They had to split it in two to fit it in the room. I mean, come on. Amazing.
Trajan’s column at the V&A Cast Court. Unwashed nerd in foreground for scale.
As for other museums worth a look-in, The British Museum is your one-stop mummy shop. In addition to having an array of ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, desiccated body bits and decorative scarabs, it hosts the Rosetta Stone. The Tate Modern has the stuff that makes you say “I don’t get this; I hate it”, or “I don’t get this; I love it”. The Imperial War Museum in Lambeth is affecting — the Blitz and Holocaust exhibits will silence you into solemnity and bring home the meaning of holidays like ANZAC Day and Memorial Day.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea. The works within its walls are frequently anarchic and witty and it makes for a great palate cleanser if you’ve been traipsing around museums all day. The best artwork at the moment is by Richard Wilson: an entire room filled to waist-deep height with sump oil. You observe it from a platform, and for the first few minutes you have no idea what you’re looking at. The surface looks solid but reflective. Then you start to see ripples and realise the entire thing is liquid. Reader, it blew my mind.
Hug a Londoner today!
Nature and all that
London, your parks are impressive. Well done. There are also a lot of them. And they are huge. Regent’s Park, Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath are all so very English. The deck chairs, the rowboats, the manicured rose gardens, the ponds that people bathe in when it reaches a balmy 15 degrees Celcius: this is the Britain I came to see. Though the grit of New York has its charms, the sheer prettiness of these verdant enclaves is sigh-worthy.
But even when I’m on vacation, I like to remind myself regularly that I am going to die. It’s just part of the ol’ routine, you know? So I took a stroll through Brompton Cemetery. It’s peaceful and mossy and overgrown but not at all eerie. People ride their bikes along the paths. There was even a girl playing catch with her dad when I was there. I’m sure the residents didn’t mind.
This concludes your daily memento mori. Thank you for visiting Brompton Cemetery.
Social graces
There are a few things about London that you can appreciate no matter where you venture to within the city. The first is the prevailing civility. This is different to what I’m used to, both in my adopted home and my original one. New York is brash and wild and get-outta-my-way-already. Similarly, one of Australia’s hallmarks — many would call it a virtue — is the very casual manner in which people converse with one another. This can be seen in fleeting encounters (bus drivers, waitstaff) as well as with friends, and even between different levels of the workplace hierarchy. There is a lot of fast-tracked familiarity when it comes to addressing people, as evidenced in the fact that anyone whose name cannot be recalled is referred to as “mate”.
By contrast, your average London encounter is shrouded in social decency. People on the street, cashiers and train announcers get all Jane Austen on you, politely offering phrases like “I’m terribly sorry” and “Do bear with me for a spell while I extract this bandsaw from the gaping wound in my torso”. Such considerate language denotes respect and a certain reserved approach that I find most alluring. It reminds me of that scene between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth near the end of Pride and Prejudice where they are confessing their mutual desire to hook up, couched in such beautifully restrained lines as “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” Oh YES, YOU MUST. Hot.
Call when you want, but there’s no one home, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone.
Supermarket food
However undeserved, England has a reputation for awful cuisine. But there is one ares in which it excels: decent lazy-single-person food. Oh, my word. Just drop into an M&S Simply Food or check out the organic readimeals from Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. Unlike New York supermarkets, where high-fructose corn syrup reigns supreme, you will find delicious, fresh things that your lazy ass can eat straight out of the box. If you are like me (non house-trained, more inclined to spend time dancing to Lady Gaga in your living room than bother whipping up a quick paella), London is your lazebot mecca. I was enraptured by the array of gastronomic offerings that require little to no effort expenditure before being transported from fork to mouth.
Thus ends my meandering trip report. Thank you, people of London, for showing me a good time. I will be back.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh yes. I live off that kind of food.
Glad you enjoyed the city Ella. You must be the only tourist to have ever trekked over to Brompton Cemetery! Did you go to the filth (nudist) exhibition in the Tate Modern? I’ve been meaning to go for weeks.
You look good in that green shirt.
Glad you enjoyed London Ella. Lovely City.
Talking about awful British food, what about those delicious Indian cuisine? I bet you’ve tried it as an alternative right? I mean, i couldn’t survive London or any British city unless if i eat Indian food only.
Yes on everything—except the supermarkets! Where but NYC (and presumably, Japan) does the supermarket at the end of the road have a sushi chef?! And also Wholefood’s self-serve deli section (oh my the salads!) runs rings around M&S (unless you actually prefer shrink-wrapped food). Although Wholefoods’ Indian meals are mush…not that supermarket ‘Indians’ could possibly ever be authentic. But then, and rather ironically, you can get dosas from a street vendor in NYC…yet not London! It’s an endless task trying to compare the two…
Benjamin: I actually bypassed the Tate Modern this time around, only because I’ve gone every other time I’ve been in London. But I was in Southwark briefly and had to pay a visit to one of my favourite pieces of street art ever: the Monument to the Unknown Artist. Love that guy.
Mohamad: I have enjoyed a few sumptuous feasts at Brick Lane. Good stuff.
Jacob: Okay, I admit I’ve been remiss in not acknowledging Whole Foods. The first time I went into the one at Union Square I was so overwhelmed. I felt I didn’t deserve the splendour on show. It was all too much. I used to frequent the salad bar before getting paranoid about pathogens.
Fantastic photo of the London Eye. I only noticed in the reflection that some of the lights are out.
I was recently back in London (being an ex-pat Brit in Boston normally) and though I didn’t have anywhere near enough free time, I too was surprised at how much I liked the city. I was in Kensington too which probably helps..!
I’m currently working the Edinburgh Film Festival and working out of a portacabin, so I must agree with you on the supermarket food. Sainsbury’s chicken and bacon sandwiches are saving my life!
Lovely to hear you had a good time in London!
I’m all about that lazy-single-person quick meal. Except once in a while when for some reason I get the ambition to try something complicated, and while it usually works out I usually think it’s too much trouble.
I’ve only been to England once. I didn’t go on the London Eye because by the time we got around to it we’d been walking all day and my feet were absolutely killing me.
Love the picture next to the Telephone Box made me think Vote Ella as next companion for Doctor Who!
We are really lucky that most of the Public Art Galleries, Museums and some Historical Monuments/Buildings in Britain have free entry. Been a bit of Museum and Art Gallery nerd it would otherwise cost me a small fortune in entry fees.
I was in Chicago three weeks ago and decided to visit the Art Institute, had to pay $18 entry free (no strong suggestion of a donation here). But to be honest it was worth it, a fantastic place, so not complaining about the fee, It just must get really expensive if you are an Art nerd in USA.
Tell me about the bad food, I have to live with it. on your next visit look for polish food shops, they’re everywhere due to to polish immigrants, have great food and are pretty cheap, only thing is they’re hard to find and your really need to be with someone living in the area to find them.
I had the pleasure of going to London in March of 2006 and rented a flat in Chelsea.
I could not wait to see the city. Being a typical American who grew up during the 1960’s, one of my first stops was Abbey Road, home of the famous Studio #2 where The Beatles recorded most of their albums. Being a life long fan of Mr. Holmes, I also went by the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street.
I also had to walk by Buckingham Palace and tour the Tower of London complex which while there I encountered no ghosts or paranormal activity. Darn.
I also decided to go on my own little memento mori at Highgate Cemetery. The gray sky and rain just made it creepier. Haunted? Yep.
But I loved the way the women spoke, very melodic. For me, the food wasn’t all THAT bad.
Riding the Tube was quite the experience as well, at least for someone who had never been on a subway before.
I hope to return some day.
Thanks for sharing your trip with us.
Glad you enjoyed it! You at least had reasonably good weather for it… Despite having lived in London for four years, I haven’t made it over to Brompton Cemetary yet, but it looks beautiful. The V&A is wonderful, though!