Random Stuff

No, it's not that I couldn't come up with a title, it's that that's what I saw today. :P

I rather quickly put together the game plan yesterday evening, and, not surprisingly, it didn't got quite as planned. I made it to the John Soane Museum (after first finding the alley. It was a little sketchy, but I just kept walking. :) ) right after it opened. I'd found an audio tour and downloaded it to my phone (which I had to switch to airplane mode for the lady at the front) so I had a guide for the house. The museum is literally this guy's house, as he left it. Nothing removed or added. Not that you could add anything, there's no space! John Soane was an architect, he designed the original Bank of England, and he was worried that people would forget him, so he introduced an act of parliament to make his home a museum after he died. It was already open to his students at the university because he had so much STUFF! He had Greek urns, stone lions paws, paintings, Seti I's sarcophogus, Roman funeary urns, random bits of stone and marble and more! The house itself is really neat. He designed it so that you don't need artificial light, even in the basement. He has skylights that go down to the basement, as well as grills and holes in the floor to let light down there. He also has mirrors all over the place, so you really have to look to decide if you are seeing a reflection or another room. By far the coolest thing was the painting room. It's probably ten feet square, with every inch of the walls covered in paintings. BUT, the walls OPEN! Each wall had panels that open to show more paintings! One of the walls opens twice and you can look down into the basement or across to see more paintings on the walls. It was wicked cool.

Having finally made it out of the John Sloane, I was going to head to the Natural History Museum to finish it before going to the Victoria and Albert. However, after standing line for twenty minutes, I saw that I probably still had another thirty before I could get in (it was Friday, can't believe I didn't think about that) so I got out, grabbed lunch and headed to the V&A. I'm so glad I did. I had kind of thought of going to the National Gallery after the V&A, but it took me 4 hours to get through the museum and I just walked through some of the rooms. There's a lot of sculpture, but also a lot of paintings and costumes. It's mostly and art museum, but it also has metal and glasswork on the upper floors. The main and first upper floor are arranged by country, but the upper floors are arranged by medium. They had some really great sculptures, but they also had a room that was the "cast room" because all of the stuff in there is casts of originals. The pictures I took from the ground just don't do justice to the scale. Almost everything in the room was taller than me, generally be several feet, if not by 10 or 20. The only things that weren't were the replicas of the tombs. Luckily I found a view of it from the upper floor and got people in it so you can appreciate the scale.

Both of these museums have the most random stuff in them, but I would definately recommend them. The John Sloane is a little off the beaten path, but can be got through in a few hours and is worth it for the architecture. You have to leave at least a full afternoon and I would almost suggest a full day for the V&A, but it's one of the best museums I've ever been in.

I still want to go back for another day for the Natural History Museum (a weekday this time) and the National Gallery, but that's going to depend on how much of my paper I get done tomorrow.