Dog tired.....

After a crazy week in Cambridge  followed by three very full days in London we were exhausted. One of the last times we rode the tube we boarded to find this guy collapsed into a puddle of puppy and we  joked that we  felt the same. :)

Buckingham Palace....

We did walk to  see Buckingham  Palace and I have  to  say that it was challenging to photograph and for all the gaudy gold detailing I actually enjoyed the  beautiful grounds more than the palace  itself. :)

London walkabout....

Walking between places we  saw no end of things to gawk at and attempt to capture with the camera. Here are a few things  we saw along the  way. Top to  bottom: Natural History Museum, random  row of  houses, St.  Pancras  Hotel,  double decker  bus, classic London taxi,  random building, random building, Trafalgar  Square, Big  Ben, The London  Eye and St. Paul's Cathedral.

Harrod's....

The next day we started out going to Harrod's - the world's largest department store. As you  might expect this place has everything and we didn't even visit every floor. You can take escalator after escalator up through the levels in search of any item you could ever want.

We started off in the famous Food Hall where you can find any gustatory experience you might crave. They had candies, cookies, cakes, chocolates, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts,  sushi, salads, all types of  meats and cheeses as  well  as  several restaurants and an oyster bar.  Woah.

 

 

Next we headed off to the Pet  Kingdom at   Tim's insistence. Upon arrival we found a whole land of things that your pet  may need (or never need) like doggie beer and my personal favorite, pupcakes! In addition they have a  high end spa that looked like it would  rival spas made for humans.

Next we toured a few of  their many  electronics galleries.  Bang & Olufsen. Yep. These people apparently have  limitless cash for these cool  sound systems. They look like a speaker but they're actually all the components in one sleek, modern  package. One of the employees was impressed that I figured out the volume control; you run your hand along the  top of circle to adjust. :)

Museums....

Our first full  day in London we spent  time walking around and, as nerds do, visited the Science Museum. The vast majority was  "science history" with a few interactive exhibits. Nonetheless it was interesting to see.

That afternoon we  decided  to check out the Victoria and Albert Museum. We gathered  a map of the  place and headed to the cafe for a  beer, Pim's  cup and snack so  we could decide  what exhibits we wanted  to see. It was readily  apparent that you could spend days, even weeks,  traipsing through the galleries and still not see everything.  We  decided  to check out the Architecture, Furniture, Glass, and Stained Glass  galleries. Along  the way we walked through some of the Ceramics rooms where you could peer into the 10 foot tall  glass  cases  absolutely filled to the brim with ceramics from every corner of the globe. It was  totally overwhelming and like I said there is NO way you could ever look at every piece. And this was just one of several  ceramics galleries that was just one of the  many different types of galleries at the Victoria  and Albert. Given the chance we will definitely go back.

 

 

The next day we visited our favorite museum (so far in the trip): the Tate Modern. We love modern museums and art so this one was a  slam dunk even though we only had enough time and energy to see two of the many galleries: Structure  and Clarity, and Energy and Process. We entered the first gallery to see several cubist selections. I was looking at the one captured in the first photo below as I found it very interesting. Then I looked at the description and just about had a heart attack; it is a Picasso, the first I've ever seen close up. :) Amazing! Next we saw a Kandinsky (second  photo) and a personal favorite (for both of us): Josef Albers (third photo).

We continued to move through the galleries and saw these  beauties from Piet Mondrian, Jo Baer  and Ellsworth Kelly, respectively.

 

Throughout both exhibitions we  saw various intriguing sculptural pieces. The first was the most intimidating piece of  art I've ever  seen: the Trip Hammer. And now I realize that we should've taken a picture with one of us standing next to it for scale purposes. The, unconnected, pieces of  steel are  simply balanced together barely touching the wall. Tim was incredulous and tensely gesticulated that a piece of  steel like this just a foot square would be impossible to pick up with your hands due to it's incredible weight. Yeah. They achieved their goal with this piece: terror. As you might expect  we  gave it a wide berth when leaving the gallery at the end of our stay. :)

Other  sculptures were less intimidating but no less fascinating. There were what looked like geodesic domes  made of thin metal, groups of fluorescent lamps mounted onto the walls, a painted jumble  of portions of small tree  trunks as well as a series of wooden planks cut with several  different patterns. At first glance they look like they would all fit together however upon closer inspection you can see that they aren't  pieces from the same puzzle. :) The last photo deserves  special mention because it is incredible! I don't know how the artist saw the finished shape inside what started as a huge chunk of  wood. The most interesting aspect of this sculpture is that he didn't just cut a shape out of the wood but he followed the knots that existed naturally in this tree trunk. It's almost as though he followed the growth of this tree in reverse and you can imagine that as a sapling it looked something like what is represented at the top of the sculpture. Now I dabble in the arts  from time to  time but it's things like this that completely escapes me. I have no idea how artists see shapes, colors and patterns  because, for the most part, I cannot see them when I look at pieces of art. Perhaps that's what makes art  so fascinating; you get to see something other than what you yourself can see. I may be having a lightbulb moment here, that or synaptic misfiring but I'm realizing this may be why I so enjoy looking at art: I get to see things that I cannot see on my own. The things you learn. :)