London: Middle
Our third day in London, being now a bit acquainted with the general layout of the city, we decided to visit the museums. The closest one to us was the British Museum, so that was where we embarked first off, intending to spend maybe two hours there, take a break for lunch and to stop by a vintage clothing store, then visit the Victoria and Albert and maybe the National Gallery to boot. It was a drizzly morning, so our plan to spend most of the day in museums seemed well-conceived.
(Sidenote: On the way to the museum, I took several photos of those wonderful red phone booths they have. I love the red phone booths as much as Anna seems to love the pubs. They are so adorable, and so marvelously red! I want one.)
Entering the British Museum, we proceeded directly to the Ancient Greece section, since that was the one thing we could agree on. (I then wanted to drop by the Egyptian section and see if they had anything interesting there.) It turned out to be... huge. Rooms upon rooms of statues, frescoes, bas-reliefs, temple reconstructions, jewelry... as soon as you thought you’d walked through it all, or that the next rooms must be the last, a whole new wing opened up to the site. And being who we are, it’s not like we could ignore that-we had to walk through every room, look at every object on display. By the time we were finished, almost all the time we had allotted for the museum in whole was up, and if we wanted to stick to our schedule at all, we needed to leave, and leave soon. Dismissing any ideas of browsing through the Asian section, we headed towards the exit, when I remembered that I wanted to see Egypt. I begged Anna to stop by there, promising that it wouldn’t take much time, reasoning that “it’s probably only a few rooms--it can’t possibly be as big as the Greece section!”
Here I must say that upon our return to the US, when we were telling Ivan about the places we visited in London, his reaction to the name of the British Museum was, “You mean the one that has all of Egypt in it?”
Yes. Yes it did.
I tried to be quick about it, but once again, there were rooms and rooms. And unlike all the other museums I’d so recently visited, where whatever Egyptian artifacts they had were of little interest to me, here the quantity was supported by quality, and it was almost impossible to pass all of it by. All the things I’d hoped to find in the other museums, all were here, as if to spite us. Anna had to literally drag me out of there, and I still didn’t get to see anywhere as much as I wanted (though we did do a quick run through the Medieval Europe section on our way out).
Having finally stumbled out of the museum, we were both hungry and tired, and thus decided that lunch would be a good idea indeed. Since I also wanted to see that vintage store (I got its address out of our guide book), we headed in its direction, hoping to find someplace to eat in its general vicinity. After perhaps a longer walk than we’d counted on, and a re-check of the address, we actually managed to find it. As soon as we walked towards its doors, I told Anna that we’d have to buy something there, no matter what. It was full of exactly the kind of vintage stuff we were interested in-ie, 70s glam stuff, with mannequins decked out in platforms, sparkling bright jackets and other such lovely things.
Inside, there were some great 1920’s style mirrors, and an even greater pair of cherry red boot-shoes, just like Bowie’s on the Top of the Pops “Starman” video, and the “Queen Bitch” one. (I apologize for those of you who’ve no idea what I’m on about.) There were also these gorgeous silver glitter platform boots, which we both immediately approached as if drawn by a zoning device, but which sadly cost too much for me to buy at the time.
I then, of course, flipped through the record section in search of T. Rex, or, more precisely, Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, while Anna looked for Cockney Rebel. At first view I was disappointed. I had hoped that in a store such as this, there’d be more T. Rex LPs, but I only found The Slider (too cliche) and The Beginning of Doves. Now, the latter one sorely tempted me, as I’ve already stated that I a) adore its cover, and b) buy records solely on the basis of their covers. But I did already own it, and it wasn’t that cheap, and...
While trying to decide whether I should ask the owner if they had any more Tyrannosaurus Rex records I might have missed, and whether to buy the album I’d found or not, I absently approached a clothes rack and started rifling through the jackets. There were all kinds, and I started to mentally split them into character groups: “This is like the ones they wore in Velvet Goldmine, this is more of a punk thing, this one is very Brian Eno, and this... ha, this one is like something *he* might wear!” The last one was a high-cut suit jacket fully covered in gold sequins. Amused by this sparkling spectacle, I turned over its lapel to check the price, and saw that the jacket was labeled under the name of “Solid Gold Easy Action.”
That was so wonderful, I barely suppressed a “squee!” and at once ran to the store owner. (“Solid Gold Easy Action” was the name of a T. Rex single.) To my surprise, upon hearing me mention T. Rex, he became even more excited than I, immediately going to see if there were other records available, and calling for his coworker to come and talk to me. It turned out both of them were huge fans of T. Rex, and the supposedly short store drop-in turned into an hour-long chat. Anna was not perhaps as pleased with this as I was, and said she barely kept from rolling her eyes as we went on and on about how pretty Marc Bolan was (yes, even the male fans will go on about that). I did try to turn the conversation to Bowie a few times (this was where I found out where the K. West sign on Heddon street went-the owner’s friend took it some years ago, while under the influence of a few too many beers), but generally, I was too exhilarated about finally meeting some flesh-and-blood T. Rex fans, and they, if possible, seemed to up me one in their enthusiasm. According to Leigh (the owner), he’d never had “a girl walk into the shop before and say that T. Rex was her favorite band in the world.”
This actually puzzles me, because a) I don’t think I ever said that as such actually, and b) one would think they’d never met anyone who was interested in T. Rex before, but that isn’t true. For one thing, there are enough T. Rex fans in London yet; for another, Leigh said that he goes to the meet-ups held on the weekend of Marc’s death in London, and there are plenty of female T. Rex admirers there.
Be that as it may, we had a fun time talking and browsing through the shop. At one point, I spied an Edwardian top hat (another item I couldn’t afford), and after a brief deliberation, put down the Doves album I’d been cradling lovingly in my arms till then, replacing it with the hat, of which I couldn’t bear to let go till we actually had to leave. :P
Seeing me glancing longingly at the hat and the silver platform boots, the guys suggested I try them on, and that in fact I should try on anything I wanted in the store. I immediately availed myself of this suggestion, and was soon dressed as a pretty good approximation of a Velvet Goldmine extra, in the boots, the hat, the gold jacket, and a feather boa.
Gosh, but I love playing dress-up. I’m the most childish 20-year-old ever. However, for once I was indulged in my childishness, and as I exclaimed over the glory of the silver boots, Leigh seemed almost on the verge of offering them to me for free. :) They were such sweet guys.
In the end, we had to leave, and unfortunately did so without the boots or the top hat. We did, however, buy a Roxy Music and a Tyrannosaurus Rex (Leigh found one) single, at a discount, yet. In addition, we obtained the address of a bookstore where I could get a good Marc biography, and Leigh promised to look for more T. Rex/Tyrannosaurus Rex stuff for me, and call us if he got any. He also asked us to come by sometime after closing time, around 7, when there wouldn’t be customers to interrupt us and we could hang out more.
By the time we emerged from the shop, our proposed schedule was really gone to shot, so we did the best we could and dropped by to eat in the nearest Indian restaurant “that didn’t smell of curry.” (Anna hates curry.) On the whole, she rather enjoyed the interlude too, and even agreed that we should come back at a later date, but it also seemed to have given her an odd impression of all vintage record shops and their owners. From then on, she somehow formed a conviction that all vintage store owners in London were part of this huge conspiracy of T. Rex fans, and that their only purpose in life was to meet me, talk to me about Marc Bolan, and spoil our sight-seeing plans. Walking by a vintage record shop the next day that had just closed (all the shops close at seven), and in response to my disappointed remark that I’d wanted to go in there, she replied somewhat bitterly: “well, why don’t you just knock on the window and yell, ‘I love T. Rex’? I’m sure they’d run out and open the shop just for you, and probably invite you for tea or something.” And when I expressed a wish to look through some similar shops the next day, she agreed only on the condition that, “you walk in, you get out, and you don’t ask about T. Rex-don’t even mention the name! If the cashiers start talking to you, don’t respond, don’t say anything, just leave! We are NOT going to be there for an hour.” The funny thing being, she seemed honestly worried that such a thing might happen.
After lunch, we finally made it to the Victoria and Albert museum-half an hour before it closed. Anna really loved the museum though, and it did have some interesting Aestheticism decor and decorating arts, and so we decided to come back on Thursday or Friday.
After the museum threw us out at about 5:45, we thought about what to do with the rest of the day, and decided to go see Tite street, where Wilde lived (as well as Mick Jagger and Mark Twain). It was a bit difficult getting there-no tube stops close by, so we had to walk a good while-but we found it (for once) without mishap. Once again, a flurry of picture-taking ensued… we took enough photos of the street and the house to enable a reconstruction back at home. Why, we could blow the photos up and wallpaper a room with them, and we’d have a replica.
This lead to an interesting interlude though… while we were snapping the photos, an elderly gentleman came out, and asked if we wanted him to take a photo of both of us in front of his house. Initially I replied, “Only if someone famous lived there,” but he didn’t hear that, which was just as well. I didn’t mean to be rude, truly! So he took a photo of us, and then we chatted, and said how we were there because of Wilde and then we started talking about the rest of the Aesthetes/Decadents and Pre-Raphaelites. And then, he pulled out a ticket and said that he was just about to go to invite a neighbor of his to an art show, but he had an extra pass for two people, and would we be interested in going to see it? The show was located just around the block, and today was the preview for it, and since we seemed to be interested in art...
See, this is why it pays off to talk to random people you meet. You never know what opportunities they might present. :)
(to be continued)
(Sidenote: On the way to the museum, I took several photos of those wonderful red phone booths they have. I love the red phone booths as much as Anna seems to love the pubs. They are so adorable, and so marvelously red! I want one.)
Entering the British Museum, we proceeded directly to the Ancient Greece section, since that was the one thing we could agree on. (I then wanted to drop by the Egyptian section and see if they had anything interesting there.) It turned out to be... huge. Rooms upon rooms of statues, frescoes, bas-reliefs, temple reconstructions, jewelry... as soon as you thought you’d walked through it all, or that the next rooms must be the last, a whole new wing opened up to the site. And being who we are, it’s not like we could ignore that-we had to walk through every room, look at every object on display. By the time we were finished, almost all the time we had allotted for the museum in whole was up, and if we wanted to stick to our schedule at all, we needed to leave, and leave soon. Dismissing any ideas of browsing through the Asian section, we headed towards the exit, when I remembered that I wanted to see Egypt. I begged Anna to stop by there, promising that it wouldn’t take much time, reasoning that “it’s probably only a few rooms--it can’t possibly be as big as the Greece section!”
Here I must say that upon our return to the US, when we were telling Ivan about the places we visited in London, his reaction to the name of the British Museum was, “You mean the one that has all of Egypt in it?”
Yes. Yes it did.
I tried to be quick about it, but once again, there were rooms and rooms. And unlike all the other museums I’d so recently visited, where whatever Egyptian artifacts they had were of little interest to me, here the quantity was supported by quality, and it was almost impossible to pass all of it by. All the things I’d hoped to find in the other museums, all were here, as if to spite us. Anna had to literally drag me out of there, and I still didn’t get to see anywhere as much as I wanted (though we did do a quick run through the Medieval Europe section on our way out).
Having finally stumbled out of the museum, we were both hungry and tired, and thus decided that lunch would be a good idea indeed. Since I also wanted to see that vintage store (I got its address out of our guide book), we headed in its direction, hoping to find someplace to eat in its general vicinity. After perhaps a longer walk than we’d counted on, and a re-check of the address, we actually managed to find it. As soon as we walked towards its doors, I told Anna that we’d have to buy something there, no matter what. It was full of exactly the kind of vintage stuff we were interested in-ie, 70s glam stuff, with mannequins decked out in platforms, sparkling bright jackets and other such lovely things.
Inside, there were some great 1920’s style mirrors, and an even greater pair of cherry red boot-shoes, just like Bowie’s on the Top of the Pops “Starman” video, and the “Queen Bitch” one. (I apologize for those of you who’ve no idea what I’m on about.) There were also these gorgeous silver glitter platform boots, which we both immediately approached as if drawn by a zoning device, but which sadly cost too much for me to buy at the time.
I then, of course, flipped through the record section in search of T. Rex, or, more precisely, Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, while Anna looked for Cockney Rebel. At first view I was disappointed. I had hoped that in a store such as this, there’d be more T. Rex LPs, but I only found The Slider (too cliche) and The Beginning of Doves. Now, the latter one sorely tempted me, as I’ve already stated that I a) adore its cover, and b) buy records solely on the basis of their covers. But I did already own it, and it wasn’t that cheap, and...
While trying to decide whether I should ask the owner if they had any more Tyrannosaurus Rex records I might have missed, and whether to buy the album I’d found or not, I absently approached a clothes rack and started rifling through the jackets. There were all kinds, and I started to mentally split them into character groups: “This is like the ones they wore in Velvet Goldmine, this is more of a punk thing, this one is very Brian Eno, and this... ha, this one is like something *he* might wear!” The last one was a high-cut suit jacket fully covered in gold sequins. Amused by this sparkling spectacle, I turned over its lapel to check the price, and saw that the jacket was labeled under the name of “Solid Gold Easy Action.”
That was so wonderful, I barely suppressed a “squee!” and at once ran to the store owner. (“Solid Gold Easy Action” was the name of a T. Rex single.) To my surprise, upon hearing me mention T. Rex, he became even more excited than I, immediately going to see if there were other records available, and calling for his coworker to come and talk to me. It turned out both of them were huge fans of T. Rex, and the supposedly short store drop-in turned into an hour-long chat. Anna was not perhaps as pleased with this as I was, and said she barely kept from rolling her eyes as we went on and on about how pretty Marc Bolan was (yes, even the male fans will go on about that). I did try to turn the conversation to Bowie a few times (this was where I found out where the K. West sign on Heddon street went-the owner’s friend took it some years ago, while under the influence of a few too many beers), but generally, I was too exhilarated about finally meeting some flesh-and-blood T. Rex fans, and they, if possible, seemed to up me one in their enthusiasm. According to Leigh (the owner), he’d never had “a girl walk into the shop before and say that T. Rex was her favorite band in the world.”
This actually puzzles me, because a) I don’t think I ever said that as such actually, and b) one would think they’d never met anyone who was interested in T. Rex before, but that isn’t true. For one thing, there are enough T. Rex fans in London yet; for another, Leigh said that he goes to the meet-ups held on the weekend of Marc’s death in London, and there are plenty of female T. Rex admirers there.
Be that as it may, we had a fun time talking and browsing through the shop. At one point, I spied an Edwardian top hat (another item I couldn’t afford), and after a brief deliberation, put down the Doves album I’d been cradling lovingly in my arms till then, replacing it with the hat, of which I couldn’t bear to let go till we actually had to leave. :P
Seeing me glancing longingly at the hat and the silver platform boots, the guys suggested I try them on, and that in fact I should try on anything I wanted in the store. I immediately availed myself of this suggestion, and was soon dressed as a pretty good approximation of a Velvet Goldmine extra, in the boots, the hat, the gold jacket, and a feather boa.
Gosh, but I love playing dress-up. I’m the most childish 20-year-old ever. However, for once I was indulged in my childishness, and as I exclaimed over the glory of the silver boots, Leigh seemed almost on the verge of offering them to me for free. :) They were such sweet guys.
In the end, we had to leave, and unfortunately did so without the boots or the top hat. We did, however, buy a Roxy Music and a Tyrannosaurus Rex (Leigh found one) single, at a discount, yet. In addition, we obtained the address of a bookstore where I could get a good Marc biography, and Leigh promised to look for more T. Rex/Tyrannosaurus Rex stuff for me, and call us if he got any. He also asked us to come by sometime after closing time, around 7, when there wouldn’t be customers to interrupt us and we could hang out more.
By the time we emerged from the shop, our proposed schedule was really gone to shot, so we did the best we could and dropped by to eat in the nearest Indian restaurant “that didn’t smell of curry.” (Anna hates curry.) On the whole, she rather enjoyed the interlude too, and even agreed that we should come back at a later date, but it also seemed to have given her an odd impression of all vintage record shops and their owners. From then on, she somehow formed a conviction that all vintage store owners in London were part of this huge conspiracy of T. Rex fans, and that their only purpose in life was to meet me, talk to me about Marc Bolan, and spoil our sight-seeing plans. Walking by a vintage record shop the next day that had just closed (all the shops close at seven), and in response to my disappointed remark that I’d wanted to go in there, she replied somewhat bitterly: “well, why don’t you just knock on the window and yell, ‘I love T. Rex’? I’m sure they’d run out and open the shop just for you, and probably invite you for tea or something.” And when I expressed a wish to look through some similar shops the next day, she agreed only on the condition that, “you walk in, you get out, and you don’t ask about T. Rex-don’t even mention the name! If the cashiers start talking to you, don’t respond, don’t say anything, just leave! We are NOT going to be there for an hour.” The funny thing being, she seemed honestly worried that such a thing might happen.
After lunch, we finally made it to the Victoria and Albert museum-half an hour before it closed. Anna really loved the museum though, and it did have some interesting Aestheticism decor and decorating arts, and so we decided to come back on Thursday or Friday.
After the museum threw us out at about 5:45, we thought about what to do with the rest of the day, and decided to go see Tite street, where Wilde lived (as well as Mick Jagger and Mark Twain). It was a bit difficult getting there-no tube stops close by, so we had to walk a good while-but we found it (for once) without mishap. Once again, a flurry of picture-taking ensued… we took enough photos of the street and the house to enable a reconstruction back at home. Why, we could blow the photos up and wallpaper a room with them, and we’d have a replica.
This lead to an interesting interlude though… while we were snapping the photos, an elderly gentleman came out, and asked if we wanted him to take a photo of both of us in front of his house. Initially I replied, “Only if someone famous lived there,” but he didn’t hear that, which was just as well. I didn’t mean to be rude, truly! So he took a photo of us, and then we chatted, and said how we were there because of Wilde and then we started talking about the rest of the Aesthetes/Decadents and Pre-Raphaelites. And then, he pulled out a ticket and said that he was just about to go to invite a neighbor of his to an art show, but he had an extra pass for two people, and would we be interested in going to see it? The show was located just around the block, and today was the preview for it, and since we seemed to be interested in art...
See, this is why it pays off to talk to random people you meet. You never know what opportunities they might present. :)
(to be continued)