London, day four

Last day in London. Here's how it went. Started with the changing of the guard. You can kind of see them waaaay in the back left of the photo. Cool beans. Crazy tourists. Can you image what it must have been like last year? Loco.

Then we ventured to Magma, which is heaven on earth. So many magazine. So beautiful. I died. And almost spent all of my money. I should have, actually.

After spending quite a lot of time in there, we found a telephone booth. Well not found. More like picked one. They're everywhere.

Photo by Heather Hackney

Walking around we saw lots of interesting things! Like the beautiful type on this umbrella shop:

And a place to drop off your mail. Way more elegant than our blue boxy-things in the US.

Then we went for afternoon tea at a place called Tea and Tattle. It was charming, really. A four course meal: tea, finger sandwiches, scones, and cake. Yum.

Don't worry, it's peppermint herbal, and it was goood.

After tea, we took the tube to Hackney, since that's heather's last name. And there's this giant theater with her name in stone. Not gonna lie, it's pretty cool. 

Then we took the bus (just for fun!) and sat on the upper deck (of course). We asked for directions to abbey Road, but the girl giving us directions had such a thick accent that we couldn't understand what she was saying, so she wrote it on a piece of paper (Kilburn, not Gilbert). We found our way, and got our picture.

Photo by Heather Hackney

Yay London! We rode the tube back into town and stopped by the British Museum (where the Rosetta stone is!) but they were literally closing the gates as we arrived. Whoops, so maybe next time! So instead we walked around for the golden hour. Heather got some gorgeous photos, which was a dream. We walked over the Thames on a bridge, and saw a lot of beautiful sights. It's so pretty here!

Photo by Heather Hackney

Photo by Heather Hackney

Other sights from the day:

At every crosswalk this is painted on the street. So you know
 which way to look before crossing, because it can be really,
 really confusing.

Farewell London! We've loved you. But it's time to say hej ("hey") to Stockholm!

You know you're in the UK when...

When “dot com” goes missing

That's nice, Spotify

The voice-overs for the ads all have British accents. Listening to Spotify just got more enjoyable.

LINGO: a sign by Westminister Abbey

"Please order at the till."
I'm going to guess it means windowsill.


Says the sign near Westminister Abbey.
—It was closed, otherwise I would have asked. Or just ordered at the till.

London, day three

That's how the day started.

And then we packed up, moved out of the hostel, and caught the train and tube back into the city. Due to some delays, it took us a little longer than anticipated (mind you, we are hauling all of our heavy luggage around) so when we got to our friend of a friend's house, they had already left for church! Not to be deterred, we brought all of our things back to the tube, and then to the singles ward. Oh yeah. We left it in the bathrooms during the services, which was nice. Church was lovely. The building is right in the center of London, and it feels like a visitors center for a temple. I think there were a lot of visitors, because only one person came up to talk to us. But I honestly was too tired to really mind. After the sacrament was blessed (with british accents), I totally fell asleep. The next two hours of church were combined, so that everyone could watch "The work of Salvation" broadcast that came out last week. I had already seen it, so I had no qualms about falling asleep again. For the whole two hours. It was dark, and the AC was broken so it was really warm...

After church we came to our friend's house, and they were home! It is a beautiful place, five stories tall, and very very narrow. About one smallish room wide, and two rooms deep. I love it. It's decorated a bit Jane Austen-esque. Quite romantic. We were invited to dinner, which was a blast, and then went for a walk in St. James Park. Stunning.

The park leads to Buckingham Palace.

I spy a red guard. He was far away.

This is the former duck-keepers cottage.
I suppose ducks needed tending to back then.

And then we just explored around a bit:

And found this guy again!

And also this:

Westminister Abbey, in case you didn't know.

All in all, quite a perfect walk. Did I mention the sun was setting, so the lighting was perfect? It's fun to travel with Heather, because I feel like we see things similarly!




Also, a completely irrelevant but interesting side note: the manholes here are square. That's one of the first things I noticed.

And then the day ended with Skyping this lovely family of mine. :)

While posting this, I listened to Elder Holland's last conference talk, which is really great (I listened to it 4 times in a row). I love how he emphasizes staying close to God, as well as letting people into your home, because they may need it (don't be a home-hog). I was surprised with how strongly he condoned selfishness. Even though I'm studying abroad (let's be honest here, it's a pretty selfish endeavor) I think there must be ways to reach out and help others. I'll be on the lookout.

The Tate Modern

After eating lunch in the park, we caught the tube to the London Bridge station, and then began walking west in search of the Tate Modern. We walked along the Thames, and it was crowded! I think we were by the wine street, because there were tons of wine shops! Also, we passed Shakespeare’s Globe Theater! It looked really neat, and I kind of wish we could go. But no time! Ya!

So after about a 15 minute walk, we found the Tate! It’s big. And it’s under construction right now. Well, part of it is. So we had to enter from the backside, which was fine. Did I mention they have three gift shops? The main hall was the part that was being renovated, which kind of stinks, since that's the coolest part of the building! The galleries that they had open were small, but still interesting. There was a surrealist exhibit that was pretty trippy, and then this beautiful gallery of modernist, constructivist, and minimalist art that Heather and I both really liked.

These are the pieces I liked enough to pull out my phone and snap a picture of:

The Three Dancers, Pablo Picasso

Untitled, Gego

Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red,  Piet Mondrian

“I want to come as close as possible to the truth, and abstract everything from that until I reach the foundation of things.”
—Piet Mondrian

'monument' for V Tatlin, Dan Flavin

Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue, Piet Mondrian
Composition, Bart van der Leck

Untitled, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Orange Relief with Green, Ellsworth Kelly

Black Square with Blue, Ellsworth Kelly

Study for Homage to the Square, Josef Albers

Heather and I both took 2-D Design many moons ago, and studied
Albers' color studies. Amazing experience to see them in real life. 

Untitled (Bacchus), Cy Twombly

VIOLINS VIOLENCE SILENCE, Bruce Nauman

From Surface to Surface, Susumu Koshimizu

Other favorites include:

White Curve, Ellsworth Kelly

“I think that if you can turn off the mind and look only with the eyes, ultimately everything becomes abstract.”
—Ellsworth Kelly

Man with a Newspaper, René Magritte

Trip Hammer, Richard Serra

Grey, Gerhard Richter

“Grey is the epitome of non-statement. It does not trigger off feelings or associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible... Like no other colour it is suitable for illustrating ‘nothing.’ ”
—Gerhard Richter

Untitled, Donald Judd
I can't believe I got to see two Judd pieces! This one was
particularly beautiful.

Counter-Composition VI, Theo van Doesburg
One of the De Stijl movement founders.

And so many more!

My notes from the exhibit. We moved through pretty fast so my
notes are scattered. Mostly it's just names of artists so I can look
them up on the Tate Modern's website later!

I'll be back to update this post. Later.
Tate's website here