2. November 2009 - London

The Wallace Collection, featuring hundreds of collected items and pieces of artwork from the first four Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, is an absolutely wonderful museum-my favorite so far in London.

Situated by Bond Street, it's tucked out of the way of the many shoppers to feel special and secluded.

I wasn't able to take these photos--photography was not allowed, so these are taken from others' surreptitious shots.

A salon.

Apparently this family of aristocrats were friends with Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and Louis XV, to name a few. This was known as the Marie Antoinette Salon, because most of the furniture was once hers.

The Wallace Collection boasts a huge collection of armor and arms, from Europe, Asia, and India.

There are so many paintings and beautiful pieces of furniture and works of art. Things I have never seen anywhere included rock crystal goblets and vases (from Freiburg), three-dimensional wax portraits in frames, a wonderful portrait of Queen Victoria, and so much more.

Mixed into the historical collection are 25 paintings by Damien Hirst, of dead animal and skull fame. Apparently the richest living artist, Mr. Hirst entitled this collection No Love Lost: The Blue Paintings.

They were absolutely wonderful--so melancholy and gorgeous.

The colours were all blue and black and hues of white. They were quite striking.

Set against a backdrop of blue patterned silk, the exhibition was fabulous.

One of the most wonderful pieces was this skull in the midst of darkness. It looked like it was glowing-- I had to look behind the frame to make sure it was being illuminated by a backlight.

This was my other favorite painting. I love the roses.

A little park outside the Hertford House.

Red and pink berries and flowers--in November.

1. November 2009 - London

In honor of November 1, there was a Dia de los Muertos festival at the British Museum. My apologies for the fuzzy photos, I'm not sure what happened.

There was wonderful music and traditional dancing, complete with whirling skirts and tapping feet. The band played one song after another, as the crowds sang along (in Spanish, of course). They tried to leave the stage about three times after their allotted time had passed, but had to retake the stage with encore numbers to shouts of "Otra! Otra!".

This little girl wore a tiny traditional pink dress, and had her face painted as a skull. Wierdly cute, but also a little disturbing. But then again, most of the kids who were running around had skeletal smiles painted on their faces, or held a decorated grinning skull mask in front of their faces.

The male dancers were great, completely synchronized and enthusiastic–they even jubilantly shouted and yelled as they danced, to energize the crowd.

The dancing was so graceful, yet completely controlled, as the moves adhered to a strict pattern.

There was a festival procession, which came down the stairs in the main hall of the British Museum and proceeded all the way around the center building. The dancing skeletons, each with their faces elaborately made-up, came first.

Whirling and tumbling, to music played by the band, they come down the staircase.

There were dancers with huge headpieces, which were supposed to be fruit? flowers? Bright neon, the wierd headpieces stood out against their white dresses and full skirts.

There was a huge skeletal puppet, in bright orange and other colors, which towered above the rest of the procession.

A puppet burst out from a coffin that was carried, to dance along with the rest of the procession.

The skeleton dancers were my favorite, however. This is really the only clear shot I managed to take, thanks to my (dying?) camera.

A detail shot of the great skeleton in the procession.

Here is the procession winding away, around the great hall in the British Museum.

This elaborate setup was done in the most wonderfully bright colors, complete with sugar skulls and paper cut-outs.

Another part of the display for the Day of the Dead.


A view of a dancing skeleton in the entry hall of the British Museum.

31. October 2009 - London

Celebrating all Hallow's Eve in true London style, complete with lots of (fake) blood and no candy.

In the U.S., less is more, when it comes to Halloween costumes and especially actual costume clothing. But in the U.K., the standard costume is pure blood and gore-- splash on a little faux blood or stab yourself in the chest with a hypodermic needle, throw on some normal(ish) clothes, and you're good to go in London.

We went to Shunt, this odd space in a tube station that is apparently the coolest/edgiest/weirdest places and experiences in London. Obviously, as it's closing for good soon, we chose to try it out on Halloween.

A wierd, dark and cavernous space, some halls and inlets were populated by artwork and performance art.

I randomly took a photo in pitch-darkness as we were walking in Shunt, and this image turned up on my camera sceen. Creepy.

A performance artist.

Huge, dancing skeletons were projected onto the stony walls and ceilings.

As mentioned previously, blood and gore is the way to go, in terms of costumes.

An ominous bird shadow in Shunt.

The scene of one of the halls.

My favorite photo of the night-- to me, it looks like this man has two faces. Very Halloween-y.

A trapeze artist dressed as a mummy. The trapeze ropes looked as if they were merely extensions of his (her?) costume.

London is surprisingly into Halloween. Even some of the bus stations were decorated.


One howled like a wolf as I walked past-- or at least I'm hoping it was the bus stop...

29. October 2009 - Westminster

This is October in London? An absurdly gorgeous day around Westminster.

The Masonic Lodge in London, a quite imposing structure.

Lincolns Inn Fields, the largest public square in London.

There were people all around the square, eating lunch and enjoying the lovely weather. It's right by both the LSE and Sir John Sloan's house.

27. October 2009 - Brick Lane

En route to Brick Lane, I passed some urban bikers, jumping from wall to stairs to pedestals.

While it was mildly startling at 10am in the morning to find bikes and armored riders jumping about, it was cool nonetheless.

On Brick Lane, a crowd was gathered around these two men, who were playing some sort of game that involved flicking a disc and trying to shoot them out of a circle and into the corners (?).

The food on Brick Lane always smells so delicious and appetizing-- this was what looked like a whole pig, just waiting to be carved up and eaten. Reminded me of the pig roasts back in the day.

This guy was an amazing percussionist, using just buckets and cans.

The street sellers were back this week, but only for a little while.

This woman was selling cupcakes, displayed in a pastel pattern. She matched her wares: the apron was the exact shade of mint green as many of the treats.

26. October 2009 - Bankside

With our whole group, we attended a performance of Inherit the Wind, at Old Vic Theatre.

The theatre was located on the other side of the Thames, and is one of the most respected performance spaces in London. Sir Laurence Olivier performed here, along with many other notables.

It was gorgeous and lush, in an old fashion-y way.

The production was grand--the stage was enormous, stretching further and further back into the depths of backstage. It was a huge production, really well done.

The play itself, whose cast included Kevin Spacey, was fabulous, with few exceptions. Inherit the Wind is about the Scopes Trial (or the Monkey Trial, as it was commonly known as), an American court case that tested the Butler Act which made it unlawful, in any state-funded educational establishment in Tennessee "to teach any theory that denies the story of the Devine Creation of man as taught in the Bible and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." This is often interpreted as meaning that the law forbade the teaching of any aspect of evolutions or Darwin's theory. The case, financed as a test case by the ACLU, was a critical turning point in the U.S.'s creation-evolution controversy.

While the caricatures of the rural, southern, religious townspeople may have been a tad overdone-- and the southern accents of the British actors were a little absurd-- the production was wonderful and really captured the core of what many argue is the cause of American exceptionalism in the developed world.