9-6-2011

In addition to Mod stuff, I've gone though various stages of obsession with British bands my whole life. From when I was a little kid and my mom made me listen to the Beatles, to getting a tattoo about a Smiths song not that long ago. So I was happy to see this Clash reference even if it was being misused as an advertisement. Now just like how Paris has a bad reputation for being full of rude people who hate Americas (which we didn't really experience at all), London also has a reputation for being grey and rainy all the time. I would like to point out that this is untrue. It's actually quite tropical with palm trees growing everywhere. Yeah whatever, London's notorious reputation as an umbrella killer is actually pretty well founded. Everywhere I looked were broken or horribly injured umbrellas. Umbrellas aren't that interesting to look at though, so we went to go look at art at the Tate Britain instead. They had a pretty great exhibition on Turner's paintings, but I thought it was pretty awesome to see his sketchbook, and pigments, and palate. Granted, this was all under glass unlike our experience at Sargent's studio, but it was still really cool. This mirror was actually really cool too, but it doesn't look as dimensional in pictures. Awe, then we came into this room devoted to the late Lucian Freud who had sadly died only two months ago. Freud was a painter we discussed a lot when I was first learning to paint in college for his incredible paint handling. The other painter we talked about a lot at this time was Sargent. Really though, look at this mark making. His paintings and light quality look so good from far away, but his brushwork is almost like Monet. Clearly I saw a lot of paintings that I liked a lot. Nicole found at least one painting that she liked a lot. I'm not really sure what this guy likes, but he was pretty crazy to talk to.

After museuming, we decided to go to the museum of department stores. This is Harrod's. They literally sell everything. Including unicorns. Both the window glare and animal people reminded me of Deyrolle. We actually spent a long time just looking at their window displays. I probably looked like this.

Ok, so our trip to Paris was pretty much perfect and I did everything that I wanted to do, except for a few things. Deyrolle was closed when we went, so I didn't get to go inside and buy a framed butterfly, and I totally forgot that I wanted to eat onion soup (and didn't really see it on any of the menus to even remind me). The biggest regret immediately upon leaving, was that I cheaped out on ordering something made with truffles (I still stand by the decision that I'm way too poor to order $50 risotto though). In any case, Harrod's kind of had two of those things covered. The weird taxidermy, and at least getting to see the biggest truffle I've seen in my life. They sold all sorts of little truffle stuff too, but look how freaking huge that mushroom is. If it were a white one, it would probably be worth more than my car. Lots of things in Harrod's are worth more than my car. Their escalators alone are relics from ancient Egypt. They also had a super creepy stature of Princess Diana that I really dropped the ball by not photographing. I think I was being shy of security guards, and genuinely creeped out by it.

Food picture time! London has great fast food. They have a large variety of premade walk-up places that have good (and sometimes healthy) food for cheap. Way better than the options we have back home. Plus their yummy food comes in convincing packaging of it's quality and cultural authenticity. Each box is like a little passport for a meat pie.

Another thing that London beats America for is antique stores. We're pretty lucky to find junky knockoffs of antique jewelry in the U.S. at all (and we go to a lot of antique stores). Everything is real in London. Real like really expensive, but real like they can trace history and makers of each specific piece. It's all super fancy too. I think Nicole was bummed out that she didn't get anything, but I think it's important for her to keep all of her internal organs at this point in her life. Speaking of internal organs, Nicole encouraged me to go visit a store to help destroy my liver. That's a long list of ways to pollute your bloodstream and I would like to try them all.

So back to the weather out here. We already established that Paris in the rain is romantical. Let me also point out that London in the rain is just plain miserable. Like Biblical flood level downpours. It's no wonder why they hangout in pubs all the time. This was actually our first pub experience and it was really great. Another criticism of London is that the food all sucks. This isn't true either. I really like bangers and mash, and pretty much every pub has the best mustard I've ever had in my life (other than Happy Dog black truffle mustard...but truffle anything is cheating). One thing that I don't like is beer, but I felt that it was only good and right to drink beer at a pub while in London for the experience.