Richmond's Own (but unowned) Website

 
 
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Hyde Park tree
Oh my goodness it’s been 2 weeks already! I can’t believe it – it’s gone by so fast! And another 2 weeks to go still – not quite the halfway point yet.

Today was an official free day, so we spent the day getting as much out of London as possible! I woke up around 8 to go to breakfast, just plain croissants today, and picked up bag lunches.  We (Adam, Alexis, Kelsey, Kevin, Ahren, Brendan, and myself) started off the day by going to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. It was a nice walk we had on the way there, passing through the trees, and a really nice tree with drooping branches and you could walk “inside.”  We got to hear a man speak – the guy Nicola told us. It wasn’t so much a debate as it was a guy on a soapbox – yet it was interesting to hear his views, whether I agreed or not.  Though it wasn’t the highest level of debate (but not debate) – excessive use of the F word, and the assumption that if you support a place, you should go there and not here. But it was a London experience worth having!

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Tate Modern art piece
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Whaam! at Tate Modern
After that, we took the tube over to Tate Modern. We had lunch outside before going in, out by the river which was nice.  Afterwards, we went inside, and split into several groups. I went with Adam, Alexis, and Kelsey.  We couldn’t go into the Miro exhibit because you had to pay, but we went through a lot of other ones. The first exhibit we saw was rather interesting, it was a 18 stories about bloodlines, and pictures of the families. They were very different and ranged from light hearted to serious to sad – part of a family who was kidnapped in North Korea, an orphanage, 2 families involved in a South American blood feud, a Nazi high up in the ranks, a family that believed in reincarnation (so one man was both father and son to his biological father), a family partly wiped out by genocide, a Chinese family (chosen by their government of course), and Australian rabbits (imagine having 30-40 offspring a year! Yikes.)  We wandered through some other galleries – saw some really  modern things – wood carvings, a video of a guy kicking a trashcan, a staircase made of fabric, stones arrange in concentric circles, hardened foam that looked like lava, a mirror, some strange scultures, and much more. We also saw some older 20th century pieces – Picasso, other cubist pieces (Alexis gave me a short history lesson on one of the art pieces!), and the Whaam! Painting which was a pop art piece which was pretty cool. After a gift shop walk, we crossed Millenium Bridge to find a tube to Camden.

We took the District line – and the last one, we were lucky. Once we were on the tube, the driver said something like “This is the last train service today. There will be no more trains today. If you are still sitting on the platform you are wasting your time!” (He said it somewhat humorously.  I started falling asleep on the tube, and couldn’t lean back so I had to lean forward, though as I fell asleep I began leaning to the right…toward Adam. Awkward. We switched trains and made it to Camden, where there were many outdoor markets. Wasn’t as nice as Covent Gardens though, but I’m glad I had the experience – not sure if I’d want to go back again. There were some signs saying beware of pickpockets. And also the stall people were very aggressive at trying to sell us things. We took the Northern line back down to Waterloo, and got back for dinner, around the same time Nicole, Ahren, and Kevin got back.

Sophia was feeling better, so 9 of us (Brendan was back already too) went to dinner tonight. After dinner I finished my academic blogs! And so now we’ve got ice cream and watching the movie Hunger.  And the Harry Potter debate between 2D…and the world’s largest IMAX! We’ll see. And Hunger is a super intense movie. Oh my. Horrid prison conditions. Horrible…Wow.  Time to go watch.

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Camden Market

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