I set off a bit late this morning, with a vague plan of heading towards the National Gallery and found myself wandering some parts of town I hadn’t yet been to. Leicester Square was like Times Square — many of the same shops and street performers all working the crowds. (With all the American brands on display it made me laugh at the idea of nationalism even being possible in today’s global economy).
So, while walking through the West End and Covent Garden I found my way to the British Museum, and since I recently became a member (because of an obsession I have to see an exhibit that is sold out to the regular people) I went there to collect my temporary membership card and see what there was to see. It’s an impressive building and while huge, it was still incredibly crowded. I heard a member of the staff say that they have 30,000 people a day come through during the summer months. The exhibits included artifacts from Ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome, as well as sections from Asia and the Middle East and of course Europe. I viewed some landscapes and watercolors from Britisth artists and did a drive by of the Rosetta Stone and an Easter Island statue and browsed the section on Japan an then headed out. The crowds were pretty crazy.
The exhibit I will see in a week is on Hokusai, the Japanese artist whose namesake museum I visited in Obuse, Japan in May. There were a few of his works in the Japanese section of the museum, but I’m very anxious to see how they’ve curated the exhibit that’s so popular it’s impossible to get in!
I eventually found my way to the National Gallery and the art both inside and out on the plaza at Trafalgar Square. So many of the paintings in the Gallery are portraits and from the 15th-18th C’s that I find less interesting than those from the 19th C. There was a good collection of Monet and Manet and Van Gogh and Pizarro and Seurat, so that was where I spent the hour I had before closing.
I had a quick dinner enroute to the hotel, and I was excited at the idea of having some quiet time in my room when I bumped into an old friend and colleague from my Hasbro days in the lobby of the hotel. Natasha is here on business so I joined her as she ate dinner and we caught up on life. While she only lives about 20 miles from me at home, it took a visit to London to reconnect after 5 years! It was wonderful to see her.
And that was my day.
