Victoria and Albert Museum

Our last stop while in London was the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum), so-named for Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. It is a decorative art and design museum and featured all manner of statues, tapestries, clothing, furniture, etc. We took a free museum tour that described several of their best items, including the world's oldest dated carpet (Persian, of course) and an Italian sculpture, Samson slaying a Philistine.

One of the most interesting things we saw, though, was a special exhibit called Cold War Modern, which was an examination of the way the Cold War shaped art and design for both camps. Anxiety about the bomb lead to some very bleak and futuristic design work, like house/city of the future concepts that depicted a way of life divorced from the natural world. One of the aspects of the exhibit that I found the most interesting was the examination of Cold War era propaganda materials. A war of propaganda wasn't an idea exclusive to the Eastern Bloc; the United States was also out actively touting its superior way of life via images of household appliances and personal automobiles. The best example of the back-and-forth was a Soviet exhibition in New York and the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. A model of an American kitchen at the latter was the site of the famous kitchen debate between then US VP Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Late at Tate Britain

We ended the day Friday by attending Late at Tate Britain. We started the evening by grabbing a glass of wine and watching a multimedia presentation by Savage Messiah on alternative visions of urban London. Then we wandered through a room bursting with electro pop by duo Petit Mal.

Eventually we found our way to the Manton Studio and watched a loop of contemporary Romanian short films. Our favorite by far was "The Yellow Smiley Face" by Constantin Popescu. It was a sketch about a set of parents trying to log-on to Yahoo Messenger to chat with their son in America. Hilarious. If you ever have a chance to watch it you should; it is a very comical film showing "digital imigrants".

After catching the entire loop of movies, we headed down to the cafe to grab some dinner. We generally do not eat in museum restuarants because we find them expensive and not very good; however, we found ourselves eating in quite a few of the British musuems (maybe because they are all mammoth in size and take days to go through) and were quite pleasently surprised by the prices and quality. This meal is only important in mentioning because I had tea and a scone. The "homemade" scone was delicous and made even more so by the fact that it was served with clotted cream and jam. Ahhhh, I now felt like I had had a proper English tea.

National Portrait Gallery

Knowing we didn't have time to explore the HUGE National Gallery, we headed around the corner to the National Portrait Gallery to see some famous faces. The gallery was filled with famous faces from the past and present.

My favorite portraits were in a temporary exhibit by Anderson & Low called Champions. The room was filled with photographs of famous athletes - nude. They were nude to show that despite their fame and bodily perfection, they are just as susceptible to HIV/AIDS as everyone else. The photographs really show off their stunning strength and beauty. The collection was commissioned to benefits the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

London is hosting the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and the National Portrait Gallery has dedicated a few rooms to portraits of British Olympic athletes. Here you can watch a video of David Beckham sleeping by Sam Taylor-Wood. One of the most interesting portraits is of the swimmer Duncan Goodhew by Marty St. James. It is a collection of video screens that shows the swimmer diving into the pool and swimming from every conceivable angle. I am sure Goodhew got the best stroke analysis of his life from the film.

Matt also enjoyed checking out the portraits of famous scientists, like William Kelvin and Michael Faraday, while I was enjoying the portraits of Princess Margaret.

Cold Spell

We're in the second week of a cold spell here in Delft. The canals and other bodies of water are frozen. Speed skating is always a popular winter sport here that people like to watch on TV, but lately people are really catching ice skating fever: Tuesday morning on my way to work I rode by some guys playing ice hockey right outside my building; this evening on the way home I saw some children skating down a canal (again right outside my building); and of course all week I've heard other tales of people seeking out the best skating spots in local parks. The thing that really has people excited, though, is the chance that the Elfstedentocht ("Journey of Eleven Cities") could take place this year.

The Elfstedentocht is a speed skating competition held in Friesland (northern Netherlands) whenever the Dutch winter provides sufficiently thick ice. The course is along canals that connect 11 cities. According to Wikipedia, the ice has to be 15 cm (~6 in) thick along [nearly] the entirely of the course for the race to take place. The current forecast for next week is calling for ice thicknesses greater than 15 cm, so fingers across the Netherlands are crossed in hopes that the race could happen this year. I've been told that most people will watch the race on TV and that if I find myself alone at work one day soon, the race is the likely culprit. The last race happened in 1997 and only four have taken place in the last 50 years (4!). The winner last time took almost seven hours to finish and probably had ice hanging from his face at the end. The route is shown below in orange; zoom out to get a better idea of where it is in the country. If you can't see Delft on the map after zooming out, then know that we're located close to Den Haag, well south of the course. It's almost 200 km or 125 mi from Delft to the southernmost point on the race course by car - roughly the length of the race course itself!



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Snow boarding, Anecdotes

Yesterday my whole research group went snow boarding and go-kart racing at an indoor facility in Den Haag (The Hague). It was a blast! I'm dying to get on a snow board again so I can add some steering skills to my existing ability to remain upright. (It's tough when you can stay upright at high speeds but can't steer very effectively ... snow boarding in the mountains would surely end with me plummeting off the side of a mountain.) I also found out two illuminating pieces of information yesterday with regard to customs here, which I thought I would share.

After spending Monday and Tuesday giving people handshakes and "Best wishes for the New Year" like a good transplant, I was told last night that January 6th is generally the statute of limitations on best wishes. I noticed people still doling them out today, though, so it must be more like a guideline than an actual rule.

I think Laura and I have well-documented the regular occurrence here ("here" meaning "on the European mainland") of cashiers expressing disdain when given inexact change - for instance, a purchase of €3.90 paid for with a €5. Several of my Dutch coworkers let me in on the secret - apparently the reason cashiers are so tightfisted with their change is because banks here charge businesses money to get the change in the first place. Whether it is a substantial amount of money or businesses here are tightwads remains a mystery to me. (I know that when I worked for Radio Shack, I got change from the bank for free.)

Changing of the Guard and Plans

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

-Robert Burns

I planned out every minute we were going to be in London. I researched the museums, found audio guides for walks and sites, sought recommendations from locals on restaurants and night spots, read countless reviews of shows and sites, spent hours on travel message boards, mapped tube and bus routes - I am sure you get the picture. However, London had other plans. Picked restaurants had "special" holiday hours, the tube had massive closures over the week, I got sick, Matt missed the bus, planes were delayed, and there were crowds.

However, despite all the hiccups, our week went surprising well and the only thing we seemed to be short of was time. I think one of the best example of planning gone awry was our plans to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Message boards, travel guides, and friends all suggested arriving half an hour before the show to see the display of pageantry. Ever-conscience of the clock, we arrived 45 minutes ahead of time to scope out the best place to photograph the guard.

Stepping out of Hyde Park, I knew this was just not going to happen. Bus loads of tourists were already lining the gates, steps, and walk ways around Buckingham Palace. Having already spent enough time standing around in the cold (think fireworks and parade) and not wanting the prize view of the back of someone's head, we moved right along.Fortunately, we moved right along past the horse stables on accident. We found front row seats for the changing of the horse guard. While it might not be as famous, it was pretty nice show of pageantry just the same.Next time we are in London, we will know better. Maybe we will camp out at Buckingham Palace the night before. Hmmm. I wonder if the guards let you do that...

A Spot of Tea

Since a two-hour high tea wasn't in our time or wallet budget, we stopped in Sacred Cafe for a spot of tea on Friday morning. We ordered a pot for two of red berry fruit tea and then sank into wonderful cushioned couches to enjoy our tea break. Our tea was served in a lovely flowered pot with two over sized tea cups. It's the kind of place you would want to pick-up your daily cup of tea (coffee) from - too bad it's halfway around the world.

Which is Which?

Red phone booths are popping up all over!















So which one is the authentic phone booth that can be found on a street corner in London and which one is an attraction found at Epcot in Disney World?

Don't be confused by Matthew - he is pretending to be Superman in both phone booths.

Wicked

We finished New Year's Day off with a showing of Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I have read other books by Gregory Maguire and knew I was in for a treat in the fractured fairytale; I just didn't know for how big of a treat. It was a wonderful show; the set and the cast were amazing. My favorite part was the monkeys. They were so life-like, but wonderfully artsy at the same time.

The story just drew you in and everything from the original story was expertly woven into the fractured tale. Now I can't wait to read Maguire's other books. I have been trying to find Wicked and A Loin Among Men at the library and local bookstores for a few months now with out any luck - I guess I will just have to order them from Amazon.

Now if we can just get back to London to take in some more fabulous West End shows and intermission ice cream...

Tate Modern

After ducking out of the parade, we popped over to the Tate Modern to see artwork from the 20th century. Since modern art really isn't our thing (the Tate Modern was one of the only things open on New Year's Day in the area we were in), we decided to take one of the free introductory tours. Our tour took us through the Idea and Object wing and focused on the artists Martin Creed and Carl Andre. It was a nice look into minimalist art and helped us understand the thoughts and ideas behind it. On the way out we poked our heads into the Materials Gestures exhibit to see one of Monet's beautiful paintings, Water-Lilies.