uppercase F

Speakers, Sandcastles, Street Art, and Saints July 13, 2008

Today was a fairly full day, considering last night was a fairly full night. Last night we went out to Soho, found a fun bar named The Metro Club, then ate food at my favorite all-nighter, Bar Italia. Nothing better than cannellonis and cappuccinos at 3am. But, unfortunately, cannellonis and cappuccinos at 3am are a recipe for sleeping disaster.

At around 2pm this afternoon we made our way out into the big city, starting off by eating a picnic in Hyde Park. I wanted to stop by Speaker’s Corner because I’d heard that’s where all the nut-jobs hang out on a Sunday afternoon. Famous men have spoken there in the past (including George Orwell and Karl Marx), and, as I found out, it’s really just an excuse for strangers to argue. People literally stand on soap boxes (or ladders) and shout about things for as long as they want. And people shout back. It’s pretty cool to watch.

We then headed South to the Tate Modern. The Tate was high up on Jonathan’s list of things to do while he’s here, and we’d had bad luck getting there earlier in the week. After a short walk along the Southbank piazza, we came upon some men making very elaborate sandcastles on the shore of the Thames. Though I wouldn’t recommend getting within 10 feet of the Thames river water, these men were risking life and limb to build a living room made of sand. Pretty cool considering they had a couch, a beer chest, and a grand piano- all made of sand.

Farther down the piazza we finally made it to the Tate. There’s a street art exhibit going on there right now (which wasn’t up the last time I went), so there was some awesome street art painted on the walls of the building. It’s hard to capture the size of the art in a photograph, but the pieces are huge and really impressive. When in the museum, I had my second legitimate celebrity sighting (not including premiers), when Jonathan practically ran into Guy Pearce. I had to practically physically restrain Jonathan from going into fanboy mode, since Mr. Peace is one of his faves.

We then made the short walk over to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go in, because apparently catholic people do stuff in church on Sundays (who knew!), but the outside was very impressive. The clouds were looking pretty ominous, as you can see from the photos, so we quickly grabbed some Marks and Spencer food (delish) and jumped in the Underground to make our way home. Ah, London.