London: Day 4

To start out our last day in London we went straight for the Tate Modern again to see all of the exhibits we missed on our first visit. We crossed the Millennium Bridge and I got a little carried away with the pictures. I still think think some of the pictures are kind of cool though so I am posting a lot of them.

Before we hit up the Tate, we dropped by the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We were going to try to catch a show there but they don't do performances over the winter and early spring months due to the weather. It looked cool from the outside though.


We finally made it to the Tate again to check out all of the exhibits that we had missed during our first visit. I am definitely glad we went back. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in any of the exhibition rooms so I just threw on a few of the connecting rooms and the slides again. Hope they are not too boring.


When we finished up at the Tate, we headed over to the east end to check out the Spitalfield's Market. It was a little hard to find but we were amazing when we finally walked in. Most days the market is just a venue for the locals to sell their own clothing and other products, so you can usually find some pretty cool and unique clothing and any number of other random things. On Sundays, however, they throw in a huge food section selling everything from meats to cheeses to vegetables to candies and desserts. Here are a few shots from the market:

Lisa, check out the kids clothes hanging up on the back and side of this booth. We almost bought Kate and Isabella something but everything was pretty expensive.


After working up an appetite walking around the market we stopped in the self service food section of the market. They had everything from Arkansas BBQ to Thai to Mexican food. We hadn't had Mexican food in over a month, so we decided to feed the craving and it was awesome. We even picked up some chocolate cake and a delicious strawberry dessert that were amazing.


When we were finished with lunch we headed over to the Natural History Museum, the first of the three Kensington Museums. When we arrived there was a huge temporary structure set up for a special fashion event for the weekend.

The Natural History Museum was far too massive to get into one shot, so I just posted a couple pictures of the outside that I thought looked cool.

We walked inside and the entry way was just as amazing as the exterior. You walk into this massive room with a huge skeleton of a brontosaurus in the middle. We started out with the dinosaur exhibit, which was pretty amazing and even had a huge, moving t-rex.

This was a huge slice of an old...old...old oak (I think) tree stump at the top of the steps in the main hall.

They had an entire section dedicated to "Creepy Crawlies." Mom and Lisa would have loved it.

The following pictures are of the entry way into the geological secion of the museum. You take an escalator into this earth that was suspended above the ground. The inside of it kind of looked like molten rock too, it was pretty amazing.


After roaming through the massive Natural History Museum, we walked down the street and found the Science Museum. We wanted to make sure that we had time to hit up the Victoria & Albert Museum, so we kind of sped through this museum as well.

This is one of the entrances into the Science Museum.

We then walked right across the street to the Victoria & Albert Museum to finish out the last of the Kensington Museums. Again we had to kind of rush through in order to see as much as we could, but it was all still amazing none-the-less.

The front of the V & A.

Above the main doors.

This was a crazy glass chandelier in the entry way of the V & A museum.

The side door, where we entered the museum.

Like I said before, we rushed through the museum at a pretty brisk pace...and it still took us over an hour and a half to get through. Here are some pictures from some of the different rooms:

These next rooms were some of the most amazing rooms to walk through i. Apparently all of these copies of great sculptures and monuments were made over 130 years ago in order for the British to have the opportunity to experience these works of art that were in so many different countries around the work. This was an amazing idea, becase 130 years ago people did not have the means to travel to all of these different places to see these works of art.

This is a copy of Trajan's Column (the real one is located down the street from the Coliseum in Rome). And a close up of one of the reliefs.

A copy of Michelangelo's David (original located in Florence).

This is a cast of Donatello's David (original located in Florence). Also, the copy of the gates of Paradise is behind the statue (originals also in Florence).

Here are a few other shots of the "Cast Courts" as they call them:

These two photos are of the courtyard in the middle of the V&A where they had this interesting sculpture of a snake eating itself. It kind of looked like it was made out of old engine blocks.


After we left the Victoria and Albert museum we decided to walk to Hyde Park and then check out Buckingham Palace before sitting down for some dinner.

This was just a cool church we walked past on the way to Hyde Park.

They actually still use these old taxis all around London. We would have gotten one at one point but the price for the ride probably would have been equivalent to one night in our hostel.

This is Wellington Arch in Hyde Park corner.

We worked our way through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace. Even at night it looked amazing but we kind of wished we would have made time to check it out during the day.


These next few photos are of the Australian Memorial in one corner of Hyde Park in London. The memorial was amazing and looked beautiful at night:


This was one of the street lights near Hyde Park that we passed on our way to Buckingham Palace.

I think we need these babies in Lawrence.

As we were looking around for a place to eat, we walked by this concert hall and saw that the Shins were playing. I really wished I would have known this before I came so I could have gotten tickets.

This was the last pub we hit up before we had to leave. The Tottenham. Same menu as all of the others.

This was my dinner our final night in town. Sausage and mash and it was delicious.