Tuesday!

One of the best days thus far!  We started off a little later in the morning.  Janice didn't ask us what time we wanted to eat so we just slept in a little.  For breakfast we had kippers...aka smoked haddock with tea and bread with butter.  It was quite the delicacy!  We headed out at about noon for the Tate Museum of Modern Art right along the Thames.  We walked past it the day before and decided that it might be an interesting stop which it certainly was.

I am a surrealist myself.  I love work that takes you by surprise.  It's often shocking but not in an "in your face" sort of way, just in a "here try this" sort of way.  Does that make sense?  Well, I like it anyway.  It's thought provoking and more than an interpretation of what is seen.  Surreal art is like an interpretation of what is not seen but what is imagined.  Some of my favorite pieces are installations.  I really loved  "Three Dancers" by Picasso and "Forgotten Horizon" by Dali.  I also saw one of Calder's moblies which are pretty iconic and fun.  Though, I don't know that I'd put that in the surrealist category but, whatever, I'm not a curator or anything :).   A sculpture that really captured my attention was "Giant three way Plug, Scale 2/3" by Oldenburg who has done some really well known and admired works that grace the lawns of parks across the world.  I remember his work from my civ classes as being really interesting.   He takes every day objects and enlarges them by quite a bit.  You see one of his pieces close up and you think "what is this" and you step back or see it from above and say "oh, it's a giant spoon with a cherry! Cool!"  Of course they had on of the three copies of Rodin's "The Kiss" which has an interesting history.  Rodin must have had an education in history and literature to come up with the subject for "The Kiss".  I really enjoyed that aspect of it.  My favorite part of the museum was the "Energy and Process" exhibit devoted to the Arte Povera movement.  I loved this piece by Niki de Saint Phalle called "Shooting Picture".  She filled balloons with paint and covered them with plaster.  Then she had some artist friends, one of them being the creator of one of my favorite installations, Rauschenberg, and had them shoot the canvas with a shot gun making the paint drip down in an unpredictable patter.  Another piece I really liked was, of course, an installation called "Venus of the Rags".  It was a statue of Venus facing a wall and in front of her was a pile of clothes cut into rags.  It was an intriguing work and it made quite the statement.  I'll let you interpret for yourself what it means.  As for me, I think it's a message about materialism.  

After our adventure at the Tate, we headed for Holland Park.  Scott said in the morning "where do you want to go today?" and he left it up to me to decide.  I just google searched "fun and original stuff to do in London" and Holland Park was listed as a must see.  I chose to go there and if the weather was good we decided to have a little picnic.  As it turned out, the weather was perfect and we grabbed a bite to eat at Pret A Manger which is quickly becoming our favorite lunch spot since you can get a meal for about a third of the price you pay almost anywhere else. (Side note: London is expensive!!!! !!)  We brought that to the park and just had a lovely time eating and talking about the modern art we just saw.  We walked around the gardens and looked at the lovely scenery.  There were Peacocks with the largest and most beautiful feathers I have ever seen.  There were bunnies and a coy fish pond.  There were blossoming trees, a pig pen, an orangery, and a youth hostel.  The best part of it all...it was FREE!  I love free things.  Scott and I watched children playing with water balloons and played on the amazing playground equipment ourselves.  Some of these structures would not fly in the US...too many law suit potentialities. (is that a word? ha.)  It was a blast.  I jumped on this rope swing and got a huge bruise on my thigh where the knot was!  It was intense.  We really had a good time at the park.  After some more walking around we decided to head back and get into Wimbledon in time to chat with Albert and Janice before we all headed to bed.  

Remember how I mentioned how excited Albert was about skype and a web cam? Well, he bought one...this morning!  When we came back from our day's adventures, we got Albert all set up and he seemed pretty excited about it all.  He made me feel like an expert computer tech.  Scott was wrapping up some stuff from winter semester at BYU so that left me working out all the kinks with the web cam.  I got it all figured out eventually and I think Albert is pretty jazzed about the whole thing.  We had a lovely conversation with Albert about his time in the Army and his courtship with Janice.  Of course there was tea and biscuits involved. :)  Have I mentioned how I love a warm cup of tea and a nice cookie?  Well, Scott and I have been eating their supply of biscuits so, we stopped at the grocery store to pick some up and bring them back to Janice and Albert...only to eat more of them ourselves. :)  oh dear....I'm starting to get used to all of this!