Tired? Unacceptable!

S., who I met last night in the dorm's kitchen, says that not having a watch somehow removes me from the temporal plane and makes me a transcendental being. Maybe, but it's difficult interacting with the temporal plane when you aren't inhabiting it. I need to buy a watch.

Yesterday, I was up and out by 8:45 AM. Did as much of the British Museum as I could handle before visual fatigue set in (two hours, not bad). I cannot say enough how much I loved the Great Court. Build a house around or in a space like that and I would be happy, if poor from the energy bill. They let us take photos of everything and with flash, even. It was surreal to stand in front of the pages of the Book of the Dead with lights going off irregularly.

I missed the sidestreet to get to Sir John Soane's Museum, so I had lunch in a hole in the wall, which are exceedingly rare, perhaps forced out by half a million Pret A Mangers. I now know what a Jacket Potato is. I'll post about all of my food experiences on my other blog when I can use my laptop again, but for now I'm just mentioning it.

Found the Soane museum, a masterwork of daylighting, which would be nicer without the priceless crap cluttering up the place. I got them to photocopy plans, sections, and elevations, done by some researchers, of the existing building. There's independant study credit here if I build it in 3D, I can feel it. (I won't be including the priceless crap.)

There was an exhibition in the adjoining building (accessed from the house) of sketches and design drawings by several famous architects (Venturi, Gehry, Addler & Sullivan, Graves, etc.) where I overheard a British man ask an American woman, "Are you interested in American architects at all?"

"Nah, not really," she said. Isn't that like asking if you're interested in American cereal? What, besides a difference in the characters' appearances, sets them appreciably apart?

In the late afternoon, I went to the Design Museum, walking across Tower Bridge to get there, admiring the great view of City Hall. At the Design Museum, they had a full-scale wooden prototype of a car designed by Le Corbusier in, like, 1927 and one of every influencial chair made in the last 100 years.

Boy, this is long and I'm still on yesterday. :)

They only had the first three floors of City Hall open, but walking around the ramp you can see up through the spiral to the floors above. On Sundays, they open the top floor to the public, calling it London's Living Room. I am definitely going back. The building looks silly and is completely impractical, but it's so cool.

I walked from there, all the way to Waterloo Station, along the South Bank Waterfront. Here's an approximate map, except it was right on the water's edge. Back at the hotel, I met S., a good conversationalist, and took advantage of being able to go out at night with a companion. He's an intern banker, so we went to Canary Wharf. I don't know why, but London and New York completely traded building styles with their financial districts. Wall Street is stone, has tight alley ways, and is very imposing. Canary Wharf couldn't be more American with its glass and steel and massive open spaces between towers.

So now I'm finally to today.

I got up today at 11:15 AM, exhausted. My feet still hurt. I went to St. Paul's Cathedral and got some bootleg photos before I knew I wasn't supposed to. I climbed to the top, (at one point I could see quite a lot of light between two stone steps, which was more than a bit disconcerting) toured the crypt and was generally impressed, as I should be.

I walked over to Lloyd's and Lord Foster's Erotic Gherkin, as they call it here. (I had to look up its real name, because no one knows it.) Both were closed, of course. I was surprised to see that Lloyd's superstructure is concrete.

Went across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern and realized that 1) I needed food and 2) I needed a nap. I had been unable to find a fish and chips stand so I ate at a restaurant, had two pots of tea, a quick nap in the grass, and, then, an incredible time in the museum.

They have a Herzog & de Meuron exhibit in the turbine hall that is unbelievable for the shear amount of work and creative exploration. It almost seduces me into throwing away concerns about water drainage and heat gain. It would certainly make architecture more fun. If I'm not planning on practicing, maybe I should.

Right and now I've let it get too late to be out on my own. The only section of the city I need to be a bit wary about is the two blocks from the Tube to my hotel. I'll be okay, though. To bed and sleep.