Jubilee, Globe, and Tate Recap

These are the girls I have been
experiencing this adventure with-
and what fun it has been! L to R:
KK, yours truly, and BD

This is it! Drum roll please! The post that you have all been waiting for: the Jubilee post! That's right: this weekend, this touristy American went down to the Thames with the millions of Brits and other tourists from around the country to watch Queen Elizabeth float down the river on her royal barge. The weather was quintessentially British: overcast, misty, and damp. There were people camping out to get a good spot along the river as early as the night before, sleeping overnight along the river's South Bank to ensure they got the best spot for the following day. While I only saw a few people exhibit such enthusiasm and forethought, hundreds of thousands of people crowded down to the river as early as 7AM to prepare for the 2:30PM beginning.

William, Kate, and other (unimportant) members of the
Royal Family 

The most exciting thing about the entire ordeal was really just the ability to say that I've been there, since I most likely won't be alive for another monarch's Diamond Jubilee. We arrived at the riverside at 10AM, and were standing behind a few people at the riverside. We decided to walk around, and did so until about 30 minutes before the start- not a good idea if we wanted any sort of decent view. We most definitely did not get one of the parade. However- B and J were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and as they were walking down one of the streets that ran parallel to the Thames, guards stopped them and told them royalty was coming by and they needed to block off the road. They stuck around, and saw perhaps the most popular members of the royal family- William and Kate! The popular lovebirds got out of their car and headed for the royal barge, as J and B snapped as many pictures as humanly possible. Since it was so crowded, and absolutely impossible to see anything at the riverside since the crowds were now 50-people deep, we watched QE's barge lead the way for the hundreds of other boats down the river on the large screens the set up along the roads. At that point, we'd had about enough of the crappy weather and crazy crowds, and headed back to the flat.

L to R: JR, BD, me, and KK

The following night, on Monday, there was a large scale concert held in front of Buckingham Palace. The performers were all super high-profile, including Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Shirley Bassey and Elton John. Tuesday was a celebration of the Queen's birthday, and there was a parade of the royal family in open air carriages. We went to neither, the former because it was ticket-holders only, and the latter because we were frankly tired of standing around in crappy weather watching parading royals. 


Today, Wednesday, it was back to business, and we had our second supplemental "field experience" class. These city explorations are meant to enhance our British Life and Culture class that we are taking here in London. This week, we first went to the Globe, and then the Tate. The Globe, as I hope you ALL know, is the recreation of Shakespeare's most popular theater on the South Bank of the Thames. The recreation was spearheaded by Sam Wanamaker, who was an American direction and actor. It took 27 years to recreate the theatre that WS staged his most famous plays in, and it currently houses a gallery that holds 700 standing patrons, and 900 seats behind. We took a guided tour that was hilarious- our tour guide also doubled as an actor, and he was extraordinarily entertaining. 

Side view of the stupid shark
exhibit

After the Globe, we headed over to the Tate, which is London's version of MOMA (again, I hope you ALL know what MOMA is, if not, do not ever tell me). We went to go see Damien Hirst's exhibit, "For the Love of God." In my personal opinion, Hirst is a pompous ass. He is a mega-millionaire, who doesn't actually create any of his own art pieces. He will sketch them out roughly, and then give the sketches to actual artists who bring his visions to life. His favored subject matter is the balance between life and death, and the living's inability to fully grasp mortality. In an attempt to spur this realization on in his viewers, he has created pieces such as the one currently held in Tate: a dead white shark, suspended in formaldehyde, in a glass case with its jaws wide open. The viewer is meant to stand in front of the shark and contemplate what it would be like if the animal was alive and about to kill you. His point is that it is impossible for the living to truly comprehend the fear that one would feel in this situation. My opinion? He is an idiot. 



Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on who you ask, we were unable to see that particular piece because Tate and Hirst charged an exorbitant amount of money to view it. His one piece, FTLOG, was basically a platinum cast of a human skull that was encrusted in about 50 million pounds (currency, not weight) worth of diamonds with human teeth. At right is a picture of the skull, which is currently selling for about 100 million pounds (again, currency). My issue with Hirst isn't his goal in creating the artwork- it is the fact that he is a commissioner, not an artist. By being so controversial, however, he helps his own cause because he is constantly being talked about. I am glad that I went to go see the exhibit at the Tate, because now I can actually say that the piece is as stupid in reality as it is in theory.


Tomorrow is my first full day interning at James Publishing, so hopefully that will go well. Stay tuned for more updates! Cheers! 

PS: For those of you who read these entries for the food descriptions, here is a small one for you: we stopped at a gourmet burger (beef, chicken, lamb, buffalo, you name it) restaurant after leaving the museum. I got a lamb burger with hummus, lettuce, tomato, cucumber yogurt sauce, and some sort of spicy Greek salsa. Unreal.