A couple of weeks ago, the Wednesday before Halloween, my friend had to go to the Tate Britain for a class assignment so I decided to tag along. The gallery is part of the Tate gallery network in England and is the oldest one for those who are unaware. (I'm only saying that because I had no clue what it was until I went there). It contains art from the 1500s all the way to present day. To be honest when I agreed to go along, I wasn't particularly interested in going, I was just going to go, but I was pleasantly surprised when we got there. So much of the art was so different from what I was expecting that I found myself actually really enjoying walking around to look at the different pieces, hence why I decided to include the field trip in my blog. I took pictures of my favorite pieces and have included them below for your viewing pleasure. And who knows, I also might use one as inspiration for my Creative Writing London blog.
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| I'll give you one guess as to what it is. |
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| Azalea Garden by Patrick Heron |
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| Angel of Anarchy by Eileen Agar |
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| Construction for St. Just by Peter Lanyon |
I didn't really do anything for Halloween as literally all of my friends were traveling that weekend and London isn't too big on the Halloween scene anyway. Instead, I used the weekend to catch up on some much needed sleep as I was still sick and it definitely helped!
The following Tuesday, the 5th of November, is actually a bigger holiday here in London. Also known as Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Day, this date refers to the arrest of Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, for attempting to blow up the House of Lords. In celebration of the plot's failure, people lit bonfires around London and now the day as well as the weekend preceding it is often celebrated with firework shows. So to celebrate, a big group of us went to the Southwark Park fireworks. We crowded in a giant field with an enormous audience and had a great view of one of the coolest firework displays I've ever seen! The explosions were set to music, not to mention timed and orchestrated almost perfectly,
and even though it was kind of a short show (only about 20 minutes) it was awesome! Afterwards, we walked around the fair that was nearby for a little while and watched in awe as a dancer on a stage performed with a flaming hula-hoop! Definitely a cool night!
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| Waterfall Fireworks! |
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| Can someone teach me to do this? |
Thursday November 7th was also my friend Lisa's 20th Birthday! But since I was leaving for Florence that afternoon I went shopping with her and her friends the day before to look for a new dress for her, and then we went out to Wagamama's to eat. Afterwards we came back to eat a surprise birthday cake I had made her that morning while her friends distracted her. (Side note: the grocery store did not have cake frosting nor did anyone who worked there actually know what I was talking about, so I had to make it from scratch. I personally prefer to make frosting from scratch anyway, but I was on a time crunch and more importantly, how on earth does no one know what frosting is? It's on the cake box!!) We also gave her a birthday present we had all chipped in on--a Claddagh ring from Ireland since we knew how much she had wanted one. It was a little tricky trying to get one for her without her noticing--we had her friend Katie distract her in the store while her friend Lexie and I picked one out, but we succeeded! And she was so happy to get it!
Anyway that's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I'll be able to write and post my Italy blog tomorrow! Be sure to check back! Cheers!
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