Lily goes to the Parthenon (in London)

Trip 3 into London covered the British Museum. At least after a brief delay due to a cancelled train. Not only is the British Museum huge, there is something giant and impressive around every corner. There is a ton of stuff from Classical Antiquity and Egypt. In fact, the British Museum has the largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of the Egyptian Museum. I'm just surprised Britain ever gave anything back to Egypt. Of course, I had to see the Rosetta stone even through it took a fair amount of pushiness to get through the crowd.

Crowd around the Rosetta Stone

There was also a lot of cool antiquities from the Near East. Once again, the British Museum has the greatest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. These include six winged human headed statues from Nimrud and Khorsabad and the famous Royal Lion Hunt relief carvings from the palaces of the Assyrian kings.


But, all of this I had been expecting. What I did not expect to see at the British Museum was half the Parthenon. Really. In the early 1800s, Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin and ambassador to the ottoman Empire got permission from the Ottomans to remove parts of the Acropolis (basically anything carved). He removed bits of he Parthenon as well as other sites and shipped them to Britain. They now reside in the British Museum. According to the museum, their collect makes up about half of the carving from the Parthenon while the rest is in the museum in Athens. The collection includes figures from the statuary from the east and west pediments, 15 metops depicting battles between the Lapiths and Centaurs and a 247 feet (of the frieze which decorated the horizontal course set above the interior architrave of the temple. Which brings me to the metops. They were super cool and really deep reliefs. More like free standing sculpture stuck to a background. The Lapiths vs. Centaurs story (at least as I recall) is that the Lapiths (pre-Hellenic people from Thessaly) and the centaurs were at a wedding feast and at some point the drunken Centaurs tried to abduct the Lapith women and violence broke out. The other metopes from the Parthenon depict fighting between the Greeks and the Amazons. In some way, these are both supposed to be references to the Persians who were compared to the wild and uncivilized Centaurs and Amazons. Anyway, my point here is Parthenon=super cool and kinda in London.

Part of the Pediment
More pediment

Oh, just me chillin with the pediment FROM THE PARTHENON!

Lapith vs Centaur. Look how his keg sticks out!

Other cool stuff

I definately looked at this Yakshi (mythological figures associated with fertility who would kick a tree and have it burst into flower) in my Buddhist Art class. She is from the stupa at Sanchi (India).

Giant Horse, regular sized woman. What else is there to say? I believe its from the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (from somewhere in modern day Turkey), one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World.

Look its Sam!

London part 2: What a sweet mistress perspective is!

So, I've run out of Sussex-arranged weekend trips but it just feels to wrong to stay on campus or even in Brighton on a Saturday now. That means the burden of arranging things to do now falls on me. I don't like it. However, after some slightly complicated online ticket buying I was committed to going to London. And what did I plan to do with 6 or slightly more hours in London? The Nationally Gallery of course and yes, it did really take that much time (with lunch). The National Gallery = really awesome. Not only was it cool to see it after going to a lecture on it in my Art of the Modern Era course (it was started in 1824) but it is a really nice collection with some major highlights. These include:
-Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage (1434)

-The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velazuqez (1647-51)

-Van Gogh's Sunflowers

- Monet's Waterlilies, but this is The Water Lily Pond, which I like better

-Seueat's Bathers at Asnieres

-many Rembrandts , this is Self Portrait, 1669


-The Leonardo Cartoon

-Venus and Mars by Botticelli


-and many others including one of my favorites, The Battle of San Romano (one of a set of three) by Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) and which once were in the Palazzo Medici.
Which brings me to a mildly amusing story about Uccello, who was know for his strong use of linear perspective and is portrayed as eccentric. According to Vassari (16th century Italian working for the Medici who is know for his biographies of Italian artists), one night Uccello's wife was like "hey Uccello, it's late come to bed" and Uccello replied, "What a sweet mistress is this perspective!" or something like that. Anyway, this is what I think of when I think of Uccello.

The National Gallery did take up most of the day but I also peeked into the National Portrait Gallery and the nearby church St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Once again I wasn't really sure what was interesting about St-Martin-in-the-Fields but people were going in and it was just across the street. The church was designed by James Gibbs in 1721 and completed in 1726. Although criticized at the time, the design of the church later The design was criticized at the time the design later was copied widely particularly in the U.S. Also there was a little string group in there playing Vivaldi, so that was nice.


Last event of the day was the free hugs guy in Trafalgar square.

Stonehenge and a Quick Bath: A Sunny Day at Last

Really Really sunny. It was totally worth getting up at 6:30 to be in the sun as long as possible.


The sky is so blue! and also, some rocks!

Stonehenge: just a short fence away.

Stonehenge was both smaller than expected and surprisingly close to the road. Also, it is unsurprisingly touristy. You know the story here, mysterious stones. Were they made by the druids, aliens the devil or someone else? The audio tour refused to take a stand on this matter despite featuring some notable bronze-making sound effects. There are other things around Stonehenge including the remains of other henges (a henge is a flat area surrounded by a ditch or bank making a circular stage in the center) and some burial mounds. Stonehenge has been the cite of numerous similar constructions to the one today and was originally made of wood, What else is there to say? It was Stonehenge and it was awesome. I did not buy the gift-shop Stonehenge rocks socks. We walked around Stonehenge for an hour doing the audio tour and enjoying the sun. Unfortunately for someone, we left Stonehenge missing one person from the coaches. When they say back by 11 they really mean it here. We sent the whole hour to Bath thinking about the poor person left behind at Stonehenge. Maybe they'll end up with a sleeping at Stonehenge story.

Tourists line up and descend on Stonehenge

Heel Stone. I liked it because it is tilted and you could see up close

Then, it was back on the bus and ready for Bath time and the highlight of Bath were the Roman Baths. The first shrine at these hot springs was built by the Celts to the Goddess Sulis whom the Romans later identified with Minerva. In the 18th century visitors drank the water in the fashionable Grand Pump Rooms. The Baths were pretty crowded, no thanks to the two bus loads of Sussex students and as we audio-toured our way through them I became increasingly pushy about seeing things (as a short person, I feel entitled to assert my right to actually see things from the front :) ). The Baths were totally worth dodging around small running children and pushing past slow moving couples to see and included the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and a museum filled with Roman finds from the area. Highlights of the Roman Baths defiantly included seeing the temple pediment and the hypocausts which were used to heat the baths.

Bath Abbey on he left, the Roman Baths on the right.

Roman Baths. The Statues were added in the 19th century to make i more Roman.

I just liked this little elephant head

hypocausts
Pediment

After the Baths we headed off for lunch at a crowded pub complete with yelling football fans. It was such a nice day (and so crowded inside) we ended up sitting outside. Then, as usual, we ended up wandering and eventually finding the River Avon. It seems like every town we visit had a river and we manage to find it. But the river was really pretty and had some nice views of building in Bath. While walking by the river we met our guides from Sussex who recommended that we check out the Royal Crescent. So we were off despite not really knowing what the Royal Crescent was. Turns out, the Royal Crescent is a road of Georgian houses designed by John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774. It has been home to various notable people and featured in a number of films and TV shows. Also, its curved which is cool.

river

Royal Crescent

Somehow we lost two but gained another between Stonehenge and the Royal Crescent.

After the Royal Crescent we walked by the Jane Austen Center where they have costumed guides and peeked in the gift shop. Out of consideration for the one guy in our group of four and our lack of time we didn't take the tour. I may have to go back to this. Instead we had a quick (30 minute) tea time. We found the cutest little cafe with such cute tea pots and delicious drinks (lemongrass and ginger tea for me!). Tea was a great end to a long and busy day in Stonehenge and Bath.

Frosty morning

on the way to class this morning

Chinese New Year: Culinary Adventures and Lily Finds a Dragon Dance

As a newly self-catering person I have come to a realization that pasta, soup and yogurt get monotonous really quickly. So, lulled into a false sense of security by my pasta making skills, in the spirit of Chinese New Year and thinking that I should eat some meat sometime, I decided to embark on what would become the epic quest of he dumplings. I really did not think that just assembling the ingredients would be the hardest part. Sure, I expected to have to go to the Asian grocery store for the wrappers. That was the simple part. The problems appeared when I asked about Chinese Napa cabbage and scallions and received a "I've never heard of that in my life" and a friendly point towards some scales. At the second store, I was directed to the fish counter. scallops? And so three stores later and an extensive internet search I headed back out the next day for Chinese leaf and salad onions. In the end, I ended up with about 6-8 meals worth of not too bad and at least right tasting dumplings. Not bad for a whole week's work. These are some of the nicer-looking ones.
part two of this story is the lion dance also known as possibly the best random find ever (at least in the past month maybe). So, I'm taking the bus into town thinking maybe I'll do some shopping and the get groceries on the way back and part-way to the shopping center where I'm headed I see a dragon's head and a little corwd outside a cafe near a small park area. So, since I do actually have some idea of where I am for once and I have time to spare I get off at the next stop and walk back to check it out. So worth it. It was a Chinese New Year celebration put on by the family that owns the cafe place. There was music, martial arts, free food samples (yay!) and the dragon dance (YAY!).

the dragon is dressed as a rabbit for the yea of the rabbit, I was told

Someone's son wanted to participate. super cute!