London Patchwork: Museums

London Patchwork is a series of posts dedicated to some of my favorite experiences in London (Spring 2016).

Let me get this out of the way first: I love museums. I love their vastness, their history, their quietude. Since going to London I've also become enamored with the concept of the Victorian-era museum, with its crowded, floor-to-ceiling picture galleries, its taxidermied animals, its crowding of diverse objects into the same glass case. One of my favorite things about London was its museums, and one of my favorite things about its museums was that stepping into them felt like going back in time.

One of the classes I took in London was a museums studies class, so I got to discover quite a few places that I might not have known about otherwise. In addition to learning about their history, we also talked a little bit about the role of museums today and how modern conventions such as gift shops and cafes change the museum-goers experience. Overall, it was a great experience, and the best part? Most of the major museums in London are free!

So, without further ado, here is my list of favorite museums in London:

1. The V&A
The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. In addition to painting and sculpture, it has rooms for furniture, tapestry, dress, iron works, glass, and metalworks from all over the world. It's a huge, stately complex built in the 1850s, and I could definitely have spent several days here.

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2. The Petrie Museum
This little gem turned out to be one of my favorite museums we visited, and it also happens to be the smallest. Tucked away on the second floor of an unassuming brick building on the University College  London campus, this museum houses the archeological collection of Flinders Petrie, a British archeologist who excavated thousands of Egyptian artifacts during the 1880s. I've seen quite a few of Egyptian exhibits, but none have captivated me much as this. I've always been able to appreciate Egyptian art to a certain extent, but it's hard to make the leap from admiring the objects of ancient civilizations to actually imagining them as belonging to living, breathing human beings. The museum is only a couple of rooms, but it is packed with rows of glass cases that are full of everyday objects Egyptians would have used, from pottery to glass beads (I had no idea the Egyptians worked with glass!). The whole experience felt a little more like walking through a yard sale than a museum, and the result is a museum experience that feels profoundly intimate and personal.

3. The National Gallery
Who can visit London without seeing The National Gallery? It's basically a staple. This is a place you could get lost in. Think giant, gilded frames, walls hung with silk, and maze after maze of galleries. My favorite thing about it is that a lot of the paintings are hung on traditional colored walls instead of the modern white ones, so it feels both historic and decadent.

4. The Wellcome Collection
This one totally came out of nowhere as one my favorite places in London. We visited this museum during our "medical museums" unit, which meant we'd just spend a week looking at specimens in jars and pondering 18th century surgery.*shudder* This museum, however, was different. It's basically a cross between a modern art museum and a medical museum. Different artists are commissioned to do work on a certain theme related to health or the human body. While we were there there was an amazing exhibit on consciousness that had a room that used audio and video to explore the sensation of sleep paralysis, and a group of drawings meant to showcase how autistic children see the world differently.

5. The V&A Museum of Childhood
Okay, so this is a branch of the the V&A but it's worth mentioning on its own. This is not to be confused with your typical children's museum. Instead, this museum looks at the experience of childhood throughout history, as well as showcasing toys from around the world. While we were there they had an exhibit about Britain's children migrants, who were sent to Canada and Australia under the pretense that they would have a better life, and often never saw their families again. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely worth learning about.

"The Sarcophagus of Set I in Sir John Soane's Museum", Illustrated London News, 1864

7. Sir John Soane's Museum
This is an interesting one. Sir John Soane was a neoclassical architect whose life work consisted of collecting and displaying classical sculpture and architectural elements. He asked that his house be preserved as a museum from the time of his death, so stepping inside is like stepping into the past. After you walk through the parlor and breakfast room you come to an amazing three story atrium covered in Greek and Roman busts, architectural fragments, and even an Egyptian sarcophagus.

8. The Natural History Museum
This museum feels most closely related to the museums we have in the US. There are modern aspects to it, like a high tech dinosaur exhibit targeted at kids, and some more traditional exhibits on animals and biology. The real reason you should go though is to stand for a moment in the huge atrium at its center, which feels like it could be right out of Hogwarts.

Pitt Rivers Museum

9. Bonus! Oxford University Museum of Natural History + The Pitt Rivers Museum
If you want to make a day trip to Oxford, don't leave without visiting the Natural History Museum. This is classic natural history at its best, complete with skeletons and taxidermy (I have a weird fascination with taxidermy, okay?), plus it's super informative. Be absolutely sure you don't miss the Pitt Rivers Museum, which is in the same building. The Pitt Rivers museum is an archeological/anthropological museum which groups objects by type rather than culture or geographic region. The result is an insane grouping of objects from all over the world, where you can make comparisons between how different cultures solved the same problems.

Playing cards through the ages (Pitt Rivers)

Keys through the ages (Pit Rivers)

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10. Extra Bonus! Kew Gardens
But this is a garden, not a museum, you say! Well, not exactly. Built in the mid 1800s, the two oldest greenhouses in Kew Gardens functioned as a kind of botanical museum, showcasing plants from all over the world (mainly colonies of the British empire). Even the tulips that were blooming in front of the greenhouses were imports from the Netherlands. There is also a fantastic exhibit of botanical paintings that made me want to break out the watercolors.

ps. I'm hoping to do another post like this all about London gardens, so stay tuned!

London Patchwork: Walking

London Patchwork is a series of blog posts devoted to some of my favorite experiences in London.

This is an excerpt from an unfinished blog post:

"I've been in London for two whole weeks, however did I manage that? Seriously though, these two weeks have passed like lightning. Firstly, impressions:

I love London. I immediately felt at home here (shout out to the amazing cab driver who spent fifteen minutes off-the-clock helping me look for the door of the landlord's office where I was supposed to pick up the keys to our flat!). I was worried that London would feel overwhelming, but so far it feels amazingly manageable. I'll admit: rush hour is tough, and so is navigating when a tube line is down (which is always). Other than that, though, I find myself more curious than overwhelmed. Every tube ride is an opportunity to people-watch, and every journey into this huge city brings new discoveries. One of my favorite things is when I force myself to pay attention while my friends and I are rushing to get to a specific place at a specific time. Even though I don't have time to stop and explore, I can still notice, and noticing makes all the difference.

I spent my first full day in London in much the same way I spent my last day in Florence. Not wanting spend twelve pounds on a day pass for a subway system I had no idea how to navigate, I opted for good old-fashioned wandering. I wandered through Hyde Park and stumbled across, guess what, Buckingham Palace. After taking a stroll through St. James park, I glimpsed the top of Big Ben through a maze of buildings, so I decided to go see it for myself. Like so many of the monuments you see a million pictures of, Big Ben is so much more impressive and ornate in real life. Then I crossed the Thames, stumbled across a market, rested my feet in a Starbucks, and began the long, long walk home. I calculated it later, and it turns out my little jaunt was a total of 8 miles! There's something so much more tactile about exploring a new city on foot. You see things you wouldn't see if you spent most of your travel time underground, and you get an immediate sense of where things are. Win win!"

Because of its size, London isn't as walkable as Florence. A 30 minute walk could get you halfway across the city in Florence, while the equivalent in London might get you between neighborhoods. Still, I prefer seeing new places on foot, and so I spent my first full day in London walking. Since the above description is pretty self-explanatory, I'll leave you with some photos from my long walk.

St. James Park

My first glimpse of Big Ben

I love London's little side streets.

Neal's Yard

View of the Thames

Florence, Week #10: In Which I Ride a Carousel, Get Serenaded by a Professor, and Have a Perfect Last Day in Florence

Veiw from the Bardini Gardens

 Summing up my last week in Florence is going to be difficult. We did so much with so little time: we saw Michelangelo’s David, said our thank-yous and goodbyes to professors, host parents, and the students on our program who are not going on the London part of the program, wrote papers and took final exams, and tried to fit everything else that we hadn’t yet experienced in Florence into the cracks. While it was an emotional week, it was also made me more aware than ever of the wonderful opportunity I’ve been given to live and study in this beautiful city, in this beautiful country.

On Monday night my friends and I fulfilled a bucket list item that we’ve had since the beginning of the program: ride the carousel in Piazza della Republica. We must have walked by it countless times, but we didn’t get a change to ride it until our last week in Florence. We paid our two euros to the bored teenager at the ticket booth. It must have been around 10:30 at night, and we were the only ones crazy enough to be out on this drizzly Monday night. Let me just say this: it was a magical experience. I forgot how much I love carousels. Yes, they go slow and they’re kind of anti-climactic as far as rides go, but there’s something beautiful about being on a bright, spinning platform, riding brightly colored animals, the likes of which you will never see in real life. It’s almost as though, for those few moments, you’ve entered some of kind of fairy tale. They’re definitely best at night, when you can’t see the judgmental stares of people wondering why a bunch of twenty-somethings are laughing hysterically on a carousel. Afterward, we wandered back towards our houses, past the Duomo, lit from below. There are some parts of me that like Florence best at night.

One Tuesday we visited the Galleria del Academia to finally catch a glimpse of Michelangelo’s David. The statue is monumentally impressive in real life, and I don’t think you understand just how large it is until you see it in person. The strange proportions of the hands also make more sense when you’re standing under it, looking up. Considering that Michelangelo was given a defective piece of marble in order to craft this statue, makes it even more incredible.

On Wednesday we had our final dinner and reception at the art studio. Students, professors, and host parents were all invited and we stood around drinking champagne and admiring the art we completed throughout the semester. Seeing as I haven’t taken a drawing class since freshman year of high school, I’m honestly amazed that mine didn’t look terrible next to some of the more experienced students. The best part of the evening, by far, was the moment when our opera professor (I wasn’t in his class, but I’ve had conversations with him several times) got down on one knee and serenaded our two program directors, Jodie and Rosita. It was beautiful and a little dramatic and unexpected, and it was the best thing that happened all night. Then came the cascade of thanking, congratulating, and tears. Jodie and Rosita are the life of the Florence program. We call them Mom and Dad, and Jodita, for short. The amount of work, patience, and joy they bring to their work is truly inspirational, and I'm going to miss being able to say hi whenever I pass their office.

I spent my last full day in Florence by myself, because most of my friends had either already left for spring break, or their family members were visiting. That's not the say I was lonely: on the contrary, a quiet day wandering the city I love was exactly what I needed. I started by heading to a coffee shop I'd heard about called Ditta Artigianale. It was a nice mix of Italians and other Europeans and they serve blueberry pancakes and chai lattes which was all the persuading I needed to check it out. 

Breakfast of champions

After breakfast I headed to the Bardini Gardens, which are similar to the Boboli, but smaller and with a better view of the city. I bought my ticket and actually understood the woman behind the front desk when she gave me directions in Italian. The Bardini was peaceful and beautiful, if a little sparse. Apparently, in the spring, the covered archway blooms purple, and you can stroll under a canopy of flowers. I stopped for a few moments to sketch the view from the overlook point, and then made my way to the Boboli. I know, I visited the Boboli last week, but can you really spend too much time in a garden? It was just as gorgeous as ever and this time I checked out the costume exhibit in the Palazzo Pitti, which had elaborate dresses from several different eras, and even the fragments of renaissance clothing! I then retired to my favorite coffee shop in Florence, La Cite, for an afternoon pick me up. Here are some gems from that day: 

Thing to do in a garden: take selfies with the statues

La Cite

This is my favorite place to get pastries and pizza-by-the-slice in Florence. Oh, and they serve fresh donuts daily at 4pm.

After lots of letter-writing and people-watching I made plans to meet up with my friend and her parents at Piazzale Michelangelo, the best place to watch the sunset in Florence. The sky certainly put on a show.

What can I say about Florence, to sum it up? It's a city that feels like it's trapped under glass, a relic of the renaissance. I'm finishing this post miles away in my London flat, in a city that is in some ways Florence's opposite. London feels like it could change at any second- there's just so much going on. Florence is a fairy tale city, old and a bit worn but still pulsing with whatever magic made it the birthplace of the renaissance. And if the city is still and ancient, the people are vibrant and joyous. I've learned so much about how to live here: how to laugh and savor and appreciate. I'm not usually one for nostalgia, but I do believe that we leave pieces of ourselves in all the places we've ever lived. Cities are living, breathing reflections of the life that inhabits them, and I feel so, so honored to have been part of Florence's reflection, if only for a little while.

Ciao for now, but not forever!

Florence Week #9: In Which I Stroll Through Magic Hour, Get Silly in the Boboli, and Eat the Best Sandwich Ever

**Before I jump into last week, I feel I should mention that I am writing this from a cafe called Le Murate. It took forever to find because it is in an enclosed piazza, but I enjoyed an early morning walk across town. I'm now savoring a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant in the mostly empty cafe, and the only other people here are Italians. Score! I've officially found a local hang-out spot. But more on Le Murate in my next post. **

As my time in Florence draws to a close (how it pains me to write that!), I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do that I still haven't done. It's funny how time can make your priorities very clear. Luckily, this week I was able to check off a lot of things I've wanted to do since the beginning.

On Monday morning I stopped by Paperback Exchange, the English language bookstore near the Duomo. I'd been there once before, but as we all know, I can't stay away from bookstores for very long. There's a feeling of coming home whenever I walk into a bookstore, and it's nice to know that no matter how far I roam I can find that sense of belonging somewhere. I bought a used copy of The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. It's set in Edwardian England, around the formation of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I'll be taking a class on museum studies in London, and one of my passions is British children's literature, so really, could there be a more perfect book for me to read while I'm there? I'm really hoping it's good!

That night my friend Rachel and I went out for gelato (because who doesn't love a late night gelato run?) only to discover that our local gelataria was closed. In a moment of weakness (or perhaps stubbornness) we decided to take a bus the altroarno (other side of the river) to get gelato at one of my favorite places, Santa Trinita. I had my usual favorite, Nocciola (hazelnut) and I tried a sesame flavor, which tasted a lot like peanut butter. We then proceeded to get lost on the way back, and the wrong bus, a tram, and a fifteen minute walk later, we were home.

On Tuesday I got coffee with one of my favorite professors from Coe, who is on sabbatical in Florence. We had one of those meandering, wide ranging conversations that lasted long after we had finished our cappuccinos. One of the things I love about her is her unyielding enthusiasm. Every time I talk to her it's like some sort of well has been filled, and I'm suddenly bursting with curiosity about everything. (Which, in a perfect world, is how all teachers should make you feel).

I left the coffee shop around 6pm, which I've decided, is my favorite time of day in Florence. The sky was a delicate, translucent blue, tinged with gold. As I walked towards Santa Maria Novella I heard a cacophony of sound. When I finally made it to the piazza I discovered the source. In the courtyard of the church were hundreds, probably thousands of birds. They filled the trees until there were more feathers and than leaves, and they wheeled through the sky in undulating black clouds. I probably stood there for at least ten minutes, just marveling. If you ever come to Florence, take a walk at magic hour. You will find a city transformed.

I don't go out much at night, mainly because after two hours of drawing and eating a two course meal for dinner I'm pretty much exhausted. (Unless, of course, there's gelato involved ;)) Wednesday, though, I decided to go out with friends. We chose a touristy bar in the center of town, with craft beer and live jazz on Wedenesdays. The musicians had set up in the basement, and the crowd (of maybe 20 people at most) was half band members and friends and of the band. The musicians rotated throughout the night, and innocent looking people from the audience would suddenly join in, pulling a trumpet or a guitar out of a case at their feet. It was fascinating to watch them improvise up close, with the trumpet player signaling just slightly when to switch solos or when to go into the final stretch of the song. It all flowed together seamlessly. Amazing.

Friday was the first day in a while that it's been relatively sunny and warm. I didn't even need to wear my heavy coat. We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head to the Boboli Gardens, a place I've been wanting to visit since arriving in Florence. In my own excited words (ones my friends won't let me forget), it was "like all of my Secret Garden dreams on crack!" Which is true, it was. There's something beautifully melancholic about a garden, especially one that isn't quite in bloom yet. You wander through a maze of hedges and trees, stumble across statuary half hidden by vines, and walk around perfectly still reflecting pools. Walking into a large garden is like entering another world. One where the drum of traffic fades into the background, and tiny, cramped sidewalks transform into a wide dirt paths.

One of the things I love about my friends is that we can go from contemplative and philosophical to perfectly silly in about five seconds flat. I think that it's possible to marvel at the beauty of a statue AND take a selfie with it. And my goodness, we took a lot of selfies. I'll just leave some of these here:

Over all, my Boboli Garden experience was equal parts tranquil and exciting, and we could not have picked a more perfect day to go. I've been told I MUST also visit the Bardini Gardens, so hopefully I will make it there sometime this week.

The rest of my weekend was spent in various coffee shops, working on the final paper for one of my classes. There is one incident worth mentioning, though. I finally made it to another destination I've been meaning to go to all semester, the hallowed sandwich shop, All'Antico Vinaio. For five euros you can get the best sandwich of your life, and it's gigantic, too! The place is so popular that the owners opened two locations right across the street from each other, and you'll spot the lines out the door long before you get close enough to read the sign, but oh my goodness is it worth the wait! I had one with fresh ham, mozzarella, a slab of eggplant, and delicious truffle sauce. I wish I had gotten a picture, but I guess that means I'll just have to go back.

Until next time, ciao!

Florence, Week #8: In Which I Take A Lot of Trains, Momentarily Own A House in Levanto, and Run Around in the Rain

Last weekend, my friends and I found ourselves in Cinque Terre, a quintet of towns along the southern coast of Italy. Even if you've never heard of the Cinque Terre, you've probably seen pictures of it. Imagine a cluster of colorful buildings precariously perched on a cliffside, looking as if they might suddenly slide downwards into the sea. One of the towns is also featured on the cover of Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. (Great book, btw). Anyway, after taking a train to La Spezia, then to Corniglia, and finally to Levanto (a town adjacent to the Cinque Terre) we found ourselves at our air b&b, a beautiful pink house deep in the hills. We spent most of Friday afternoon marveling at how adult we felt: the six of us with a hilltop cottage all to ourselves. We drank tea and chatted, and we even managed to make a real, honest-to-goodness dinner complete with pasta (with olive oil and garlic!), caprese salad, and white wine. We lost some of our dignity when we all freaked out over a sudden downpour of rain, half of us thinking there was someone outside, rattling the door, and half of us mistaking the noise for the terrifying crackle of a fire in the kitchen. Momentary terror aside, it's nice to know we'll at least be able to survive in London, where we'll be living in flats and cooking our own meals.

Our original plan was to walk the five cities of Cinque Terre, a feat which might have been possible if the weather hadn't intervened. We were able to catch a train to Rio Maggiore before the rain started. This is probably my favorite memory of the whole trip. After getting out of the train station, you walk through a long tunnel that gets you to the marina, which is a small inlet that is surrounded on three sides by brightly colored buildings. They look a bit like colorful wooden blocks a child would play with, and they're arranged in much the same way. There are a set of stone steps that lead down to the water, and a curving arm of rocks that I assume protects boats during rougher weather, which my friend Lia insisted on crawling all over like the little adventurer she is. After being totally undignified tourists (we practically had the whole place to ourselves!), we wandered along the coastline to a deserted beach.

Actually, it was less of a beach and more of a pile of rocks that happened to occur along the shoreline. To one side was a railroad bridge that looked like it could have been a repurposed aqueduct or else some kind of mediaeval structure. We took more ridiculous pictures, and I sat on the boulders overlooking the sea, marveling at the fact that this place even exists. I seem to have these kind of moments a lot now.

The landscape of the Cinque Terre is completely different from Tuscany. Wildflowers grow along the rocky, steep hillside, and the landscape is punctuated by palm trees and prickly pear. In some places the landscape looks more like Hawaii than Italy. Unlike the sun-kissed tan of Florence, the Cinque Terre is a symphony of color. Almost nothing is painted tan or grey, and even Levanto, which isn't technically part of the five famous cities, had a pop of yellows and pinks and blues. The ocean, too, was a different beast entirely. Even on the overcast weekend we were there it was a beautiful, deep blue or a startling green.

By the time we finished exploring Rio Maggore, the rain had started. It was a downpour that would continue pretty much all weekend. We tried to not let it deter us, but the Cinque Terre was pretty much shut down in a lot of places. The walking paths were closed, so we took trains between four of the five cities. We ate lunch wherever we could find an open restaurant.

We were supposed to catch our train home in Corniglia, the highest city in the Cinque Terre. We arrived a couple hours before our train to Florence was supposed to leave so that we'd have time to explore. What we didn't realize was that the city center was reachable only by way of a 365 step staircase (and, apparently, a bus which was nowhere in sight). It was rainy and cold and we had all of our luggage with us, but one of my friends had been told that she had to try the lemon basil gelato in Corniglia. So, up we went. (If you haven't noticed this by now, most of our decisions are heavily influenced by gelato)

The hike up was pretty brutal. Each time I thought I could see the end, I'd reach the top of one flight only to discover another. Thankfully, the steps were shallow and wide, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. (Although I think I would have preferred not climbing in the rain). Once we got to the top we followed a short, winding road and found ourselves in the center of Corniglia...which was completely deserted. Imagine for a moment, five girls with huge backpacks huddled in the middle of a deserted town square in the rain. We found the gelataria. It was closed. We saw a couple restaurants. All closed.

I must say, the walk back down the 365 steps was much more enjoyable. I has able to appreciate the view this time, and my goodness was it an amazing view. The rain had turned everything an impossible shade of green. Flowers clustered along the edge of the steps. The coastline melted into the sea, and the sea into the sky. In the distance you could just barely make out a splash of color on a hillside: another town in the Cinque Terre.

The whole time I was there I couldn't help imagining these tiny little towns inundated with tourists. I imagined that the people who lived here, the shop and restaurant owners, were cherishing the silence that both the cold and the rain brought. Even though I would have appreciated a couple more hours sans-rain, the weekend was in many ways just what I wanted: a relaxing holiday on the coast.