today was great!! finally we have a somewhat normal week schedule which means today was completely FREE. no plans!! yeeeeeehooooooo! you know what that means for me... shopping!!! hahahah no but really. i had to get some assignments done, so i did that first. no worries :). so i slept in a little, showered, did my hair for reals for the first time this whole freaking trip, then i was off!
my first assignment i wanted to get done was for my english class at the national gallery. we had to observe transitions in subject and technique from the 1400s to the 1800s. it was pretty interesting I guess! that stuff is not really my cup of tea but the national gallery has a great collection. today i saw manet, monet, da vinci, michaelangelo, boticelli, and more! probably the most famous one was sunflowers by van gogh. yep i saw that in person today! it was super cool. moral of the story: go to the national gallery if you come to london!
next i wanted to get my individual site assignment out of the way. for this we get to choose a museum or exhibit on our own then fill out a worksheet for it. exciting right? hahah no but really i was super stoked because ever since we went to the tate modern i have been dying to go back for the damien hirst exhibit so that's what i decided to do! but before i went i had to find me some lunch!! i was in the leicester square area which has a lot of touristy shopping stuff so i decided to just walk around and figured id find something. i love just wandering around! i found china town and little korea and it was just too fun! i also was right by the odeon in leicester square which is where they have all the red carpet premieres for movies and they were setting up for dark knight because it premieres here tomorrow! i was gonna go but we aren't gonna be back in time :( but it was so cool! i will try and post the pictures i took when my usb starts working. so finally just outside the tube station i found the most amazing bakery and cafe. it's called cafe valleria or something but it was so so good. i will be going back! i got a ham and brie sandwich and it was so yummy. also by accident i got this strawberries and cream frappe thing to drink. it was like a strawberry milkshake but it wasn't heavy and gross. it was so good!!! i took a picture but for some reason my computer isn't recognizing my iphone so i can't upload anything right now! i'm sorry guys! you'll just have to trust me! but yeah after that i was off to the tate!
the damien hirst exhibit was AMAZING. not gonna lie, had no idea who the guy was until i got here and saw the ads, but everyone should look him up. he is insane and weird but he is really the first artist who has had art stuff that kind of makes sense to me. i had to write a paper on it and why it is significant to me and i felt like one of those weird artsy kids who has inanimate things speak to them but it's true!! he does the coolest stuff!! to illustrate how wacky this guy is, one of his most famous pieces is a huge shark suspended in formaldehyde. it's scary! you think it's just gonna break out of the glass and eat you! but the title of the piece is 'the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living'. kind of mind bending right? you probably all think i'm going completely nuts. but it was so cool. my favorite was a piece called in and out of love. so this is a two room thing. the first room is a bunch of dead butterflies he has made into pretty patterns like a lot of people do, then you walk into the next room and the all of the walls are covered in cocoons and butterflies are everywhere! there are flowers lining the walls and they just flutter around you.. it's the coolest thing! he often uses the theme of life and death and its just so cool because so many of his pieces really are or were alive. ah i love his stuff. so freaking cool. another must see in london.
after that it was time to shop! i have only really been doing oxford and regent street and i really wanted to hit up my favorite, covent garden, so i was there all day long! i LOVE it. it has a lot more cute small boutiques and all that good stuff. I got some classic london pieces today! i got wellies, a raincoat, and some trousers! they are the first pair of pants that aren't skinny jeans that i have bought in a long time! i found some really great stores. one of them is called jack wills. it's kind of like abercrombie of england except its actually cute. look it up. i promise it's not like abercrombie in the bad ways. haha. maybe that was a bad comparison. the other place was this store called joy! but all the stuff i got was a brand called louche. it is so cute. its like vintage 50s looking dresses with lots of colorblocking and stuff i love. so i was just stoked on life.
after i bought my wellies my arm was killing me cause those things are HEAVY! so i decided to head back to the centre. as i was walking to the tube station this scary african man started talking to me. unlike utah, people don't just come up to you and strike up a conversation. so this was red flag number one. he started asking me where i was from and if i worked and all this stuff. i was really short and wouldn't even look at him and kept walking faster to get away but he would not leave me alone! i was getting scared! he asked me where i lived and all these creepy things.. i was so glad i knew where i was going and that the tube stop was close because he was not leaving me. when i got to the entrance i said "okay time to go home now" and he was like no don't go i want to play with you and take you to coffee! i was so scared i just kept walking through the gate and he just kept yelling after me "so that's it? that's all?" yeah it doesn't sound that bad but i was really freaked out. that guy did not want to just get coffee. and he wasn't just some nice person that wanted to take you out or something. he was a scary guy. so yeah i was pretty rattled haha so much that i got on the wrong train. but oh well i just got off at the next stop and switched to the right line. so yeah that was my first bad experience here in london. but i lived! and i handled it just fine so i'm not too sketched out. might stay away from covent garden for a few days but i wont let it get to me too much!
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