Sunday, October 28, 2007 - 11:00 AM
back from london
Well, the GRE was good, but London was great! I'll be going back with my mom when she comes--
Oh man, I just realized that last night I dreamed I was making pancakes. Mmm, pancakes.... Usually I remember my dreams in the context of thinking they're real and then realizing they're dreams. Like, "Hey, where the heck are my pancakes? Aw man, they were pretend!" Last night I had a pretty weird assortment of dreams. I dreamed I was swimming in a dolphin tank, and when I got out my friend Jonathan came up to ask me if I could give him zombie makeup for Halloween.
Halloween... I sure am sad about that. I think I will find something to do Wednesday night, but it just won't be the same. The French do not get it, and my friends aren't hear to get together and dress up with. Well, next year I will have to make up for it by having a Halloween party of tremendous proportions.
Anyway! London. So, the person who had agreed graciously to host me for the night was a woman named Candace. I didn't know anything at all about her except that my mom had met her at some point last year, so when I showed up on her doorstep Wednesday morning I had no idea what to expect. She turned out to be a rather august creature: a Radcliffe-educated filmmaker-turned-novelist, the first black woman admitted into the Directors Guild of America, an expat of some dozen years or more, living alone in a tremendous house just north of London's center. She was encouragingly talkative and pleasantly blunt, informing me in short order that she was in the middle of a divorce, that she was raised in Connecticut and while her neighbors thought it odd for her to have the whole enormous house to herself, where she was from it was perfectly common for single women to live in houses much bigger than this one, that she had expected to end up in Paris but found London friendlier, although she went to Provence every year, that she had hosted Michelle Obama at a fundraiser the previous week, and would I like honey with my tea? For my part, I was not raised in Connecticut, but I was raised to be able to talk to lots of different people about lots of different things, and I know my fair share about books, the Obama family, and what I want in my tea. After an hour of excellent conversation, I headed out to lunch and the British Museum, with an invitation and a promise to return home for Candace's excellent dinner and more conversation.
The British Museum is so cool! Very well-curated, with lots of interesting information provided on all the collections (unlike the Louvre which more or less leaves you to fend for yourself). I will try to trick you into thinking it's a generic natural/human history museum, but don't be fooled! I think the thing I appreciated best were the Viking things and the collection from the Roman era in Britain, because you don't get to see that stuff in museums that often. I mean of course they have tons of Egyptian things, but I've seen lots of Egyptian things. But, they were cool too! It was all cool. Would you like to see a few pictures...?
Ramses had a giant head:
Oh my!
Perhaps my single favorite thing in the museum: this collection of the Lewis Chessmen, carved somewhere in Scandinavia during the 12th century.
...Well... I guess the human skull inlaid with turquoise was pretty cool too.... Okay, I had many favorites.
Viking silver! Being less artsy and more, you know into pillaging, the Vikings tended to just chop their silver up into ingots for easy molding and remolding and trade.
When I got home, I had a delicious dinner, more good conversation, and a hot bath. Did someone mention something about a test? ¶
Oh man, I just realized that last night I dreamed I was making pancakes. Mmm, pancakes.... Usually I remember my dreams in the context of thinking they're real and then realizing they're dreams. Like, "Hey, where the heck are my pancakes? Aw man, they were pretend!" Last night I had a pretty weird assortment of dreams. I dreamed I was swimming in a dolphin tank, and when I got out my friend Jonathan came up to ask me if I could give him zombie makeup for Halloween.
Halloween... I sure am sad about that. I think I will find something to do Wednesday night, but it just won't be the same. The French do not get it, and my friends aren't hear to get together and dress up with. Well, next year I will have to make up for it by having a Halloween party of tremendous proportions.
Anyway! London. So, the person who had agreed graciously to host me for the night was a woman named Candace. I didn't know anything at all about her except that my mom had met her at some point last year, so when I showed up on her doorstep Wednesday morning I had no idea what to expect. She turned out to be a rather august creature: a Radcliffe-educated filmmaker-turned-novelist, the first black woman admitted into the Directors Guild of America, an expat of some dozen years or more, living alone in a tremendous house just north of London's center. She was encouragingly talkative and pleasantly blunt, informing me in short order that she was in the middle of a divorce, that she was raised in Connecticut and while her neighbors thought it odd for her to have the whole enormous house to herself, where she was from it was perfectly common for single women to live in houses much bigger than this one, that she had expected to end up in Paris but found London friendlier, although she went to Provence every year, that she had hosted Michelle Obama at a fundraiser the previous week, and would I like honey with my tea? For my part, I was not raised in Connecticut, but I was raised to be able to talk to lots of different people about lots of different things, and I know my fair share about books, the Obama family, and what I want in my tea. After an hour of excellent conversation, I headed out to lunch and the British Museum, with an invitation and a promise to return home for Candace's excellent dinner and more conversation.
The British Museum is so cool! Very well-curated, with lots of interesting information provided on all the collections (unlike the Louvre which more or less leaves you to fend for yourself). I will try to trick you into thinking it's a generic natural/human history museum, but don't be fooled! I think the thing I appreciated best were the Viking things and the collection from the Roman era in Britain, because you don't get to see that stuff in museums that often. I mean of course they have tons of Egyptian things, but I've seen lots of Egyptian things. But, they were cool too! It was all cool. Would you like to see a few pictures...?
Ramses had a giant head:
Oh my!
Perhaps my single favorite thing in the museum: this collection of the Lewis Chessmen, carved somewhere in Scandinavia during the 12th century.
...Well... I guess the human skull inlaid with turquoise was pretty cool too.... Okay, I had many favorites.
Viking silver! Being less artsy and more, you know into pillaging, the Vikings tended to just chop their silver up into ingots for easy molding and remolding and trade.
When I got home, I had a delicious dinner, more good conversation, and a hot bath. Did someone mention something about a test? ¶