London 2

Ari being adorable in the morning

Woke up around 10am today – a bit later than we were hoping but somewhat understandable – I don’t know if y’all have noticed but we’ve been on quite the run around the last few days! Got out of the house (hotel room) around 11 and headed towards the V&A – with a quick stop at the entrance to our tube station (Earl’s Court) to get some pastries on the way in. Ari got a cheese and bacon pastry while I got an almond croissant and a sausage pastry – interestingly, my food choices were fine with my belleh (known commonly as a thing with a storm in it), but Ari did not feel so good after hers.
Regardless, she soldiered on and we made it to the V&A in what seemed to be a massive surge of people through the tunnels. We went to the V&A to see as much as we could – but also to do one of their temporary exhibits called the Cult of Beauty all about the concept of ... wait for it... beauty. “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis” or “ Life is brief, Art endures.” Was one of the main quotes of both the people being studied and the exhibition as a whole – all and all pretty damn cool with some amazingly striking painting, design, and fashion, none of which could I take pictures of. Luckily I did get pictures of some of the other things I saw and liked:

Amazing mosaic-work

Beautiful gothic ironwork jewelry

We could have stayed in the V&A all day – except that on the tube at some point a bit earlier I’d seen an ad about an exhibit at the Natural History Museum called ‘Sexual Nature’ – and really people. Like I’d pass that up?!

So, we walked around the V&A for only a little bit, did the special exhibit, and the parts that I was really interested in seeing.

Sadly, the Fashion area (Ari’s main area of interest) is closed until spring 2012 – something we didn’t realize until we were there! We made the best of it – looking at a few other things that stuck out as especially interesting – but what with our hunger pangs getting louder and louder and the fact that we had only a few hours left of the day to get to the NHM if we wanted any time there… we decided to stop in the café and have some nosh. After touring the café once through – and goggling at the prices a bit, we settled on a bowl of carrot and tomato soup with bread (and butter), a scone with jam and clotted cream, and a pot of tea. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how good the food here is, but I am – it was delicious. I wasn’t expecting to love the carrot and tomato soup – but it had some cumin in (more of a savory aspect than a spicy one) and the bread was the perfect level of crunch and soft.



--Can you tell I’m a little hungry at the moment? I’m writing this a little later than planned – we are on the plane home – and have already had our meal of the 11 hour flight. Oy. On the other hand – we get tea on the plane :D. --

Right, back the V&A. Ate, savored as much as we had time for, and noticed (again) the WONDERFUL effects some blood sugar has, both on our own personal mental states and on our relationship. Hungry Carolyn and Ari = Unhappy Carolyn and Ari (though we may not express it in ‘normal’ unhappy ways). Enjoyed the ambiance of the dining room that also happened to have these wonderful chandeliers and felt just a tiny bit fancy.



Left the V&A and headed out of the tunnel and up to the National History Museum – with a general plan to complete the Sexual Nature exhibit and then look around the rest of the museum with the time we had left.

--Something I may have failed to mention about this trip is that a vast majority of the ‘state sponsored’ things we wanted to see opened at 10am and close at either 3 or 5… not a lot of hours open, which makes scheduling multiple places in one day a bit harder than I appreciated. On the other hand, free admittance to the general exhibits? Awesome. --

So, back to the NHM – walk in, find an information desk and ask for tickets to the Sexual Nature, then ask how to get there… this is around 3, maybe 3:30. Walk into the exhibit, past all the people queuing to get into the dinosaur hall – and have a ball. The exhibit has a lot of Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno” videos incorporated into it, and she is HILARIOUS if you haven’t seen them.



The exhibit itself was mostly about the animal kingdoms sex lives (leopard slugs mate IN MIDAIR okay? It’s cool.) plus genetics and biology (need to look up what the heck a bdelloid rotifer is) with a bit of focus on humans at the end. Lots of interesting tidbits, and just generally fun. Not too many people in the actual exhibit which was nice because unlike the Cult of Beauty exhibit where we had to queue just to read the descriptions under the items, in Sexual Nature we could spend as much or as little time as we wanted at each grouping. At the end there were two participation aspects that both Ari and I really enjoyed – one where people wrote down words that had some meaning to them about their sexuality (some being words that started relationships or encounters, some that meant something more to them) and one that was a large magnetic wall with words to play with and make sentences with. Both lots of fun.




We didn’t realize it… but it had been awhile that we’d been in the exhibit. There were still a few people in the exhibit so I didn’t think too much on it – but then we got to the store at the end. BOOKS I HAD NEVER HEARD OF PEOPLE. This is a big deal. I only bought two… but first I had to look at all the ones I found intriguing, and if anyone reading this has ever been in a bookstore with me, you know this is a little more involved than it sounds. I wrote down all the author/title combos I was interested in for later research and then noticed that a woman that looked like the manager or summat was standing near the cash register… and so were a few more museum staff than I’d seen before. (To give Ari credit – she’d been trying to get me to hurry up since pretty much the instant we stepped into the shop :P). Paid for my items and wrote down a few more things reaaaaallyquick as we heard the ‘the museum is closing, please proceed to the nearest exit’ a few more times…

Holy cow people. It was around 5:45- 5:55 at that point, and the museum closed at 5:30. OOPS.

And this is the part that I really wish I’d filmed – at the time I was a weeee bit embarrassed, and wanted to get the heck out of dodge as fast as possible for the nice people.

We were followed out by a WAVE of museum staff. Apparently the way they make sure that everyone is out is they start in the back corner (which was either right where we were, or very close), and then collect the staff as they work their way to the front of the museum. Functionally this means that they line the walls and doorways and join the crowd behind the last museum-goers on their March of Doom to the front. Guess who the last museum-goers for our section of the building were?

It was kinda cool and kinda… oddly terrifying to be walking and have this THUNDERING crowd coming behind you (and joining up on the sides). We made it out just fine, obviously, but hot dang. Interesting experience that :P.

Took the tube home, where we went back to the room to drop off our various items and then across the street and up a little for some Indian food – which was okay but not great. (Okay, more correctly, Ari’s butter chicken was delicious and my aloo gobhi was crap.) Back to the room where Ari took a bath and I napped for an hour +, and THEN!

Then we got all dolled up and went clubbing.

Not sure how I feel about posting this on the family + friends blog buuuuut we didn’t get up to any shenanigans so I think it’s probably safe. Got dressed, took a tube to a place called The Rhythm Factory for a launch party called Bass Face – Alex, if you are reading this, be proud – it was Dubstep and Drum and Bass. (Ari and I joke about my love of reviews, but this place had only good ones – and I like my reviews.) Not like there was a huge amount was going on on a Tuesday night… so, clubbing. Got there around 11 and determined that the tube station closed at 12:23 – so we wouldn’t be tubing back. Kinda… walked in the general direction that felt right (I had the address written down with directions but GOD is street signage bad in most of the parts of London we were in, unless they were REALLY touristy). Found the place, walked in and immediately noticed that the age was a bit lower than we were expecting (though the age limit on the club was 18).

The drinking age being at 18 seems like a much better plan than at 21 (and not because then I’m legal) though that perceived difference could easily be my own bias or a cultural difference between drinking in the US and in England – also having functioning mass transit. Besides the point.

It also wasn’t very packed – but the music was very good. We hung out and danced for a few hours before deciding we were pretty tired (long days and all that) and heading home around 1:40. We started walking towards a better (more likely to have cabs going through) area to get a cab and sure enough we flagged one quite easily. As we did so little surface-level travel in London I’m not sure if he took us the longest way back to our hotel (though we suspect so) but we did get to see Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park and a few other historical and beautiful things. Got home safe and sound and crashed somewhere in the middle of the 2am hour.