SMALL WONDERS IN A BIG GALLERY
The day started at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery holds the world’s largest collection of portraits. Unfortunately for me most of them are paintings or illustrations, as a photography-lover this was disappointing. Painting seem like the poor cousin to the photograph (millions would disagree with that) and for this reason I didn’t really enjoy the gallery.

We choose not to go to the highlighted exhibition as we knew nothing about the photographer and didn’t want to spend the ten pounds admission. Instead we had a brilliant idea and that was to go to the book  shop and look at the exhibition book. We didn’t like the work and would have been disappointed if we had spent the entry money. I will do this in the future before paying for a show if I know little about the artist. Did I mention it was a brilliant idea

I found great joy though in the braille tour books. I opened one to expect to see braille as I always find it visually amazing. It was full of drawings, so I put it back and pulled out another to realize that the drawings were stylized line drawings of the art on show and was raised from the page so that the hard of sight person can run their fingers over the drawing in the same way they would braille type. These books, and also when Matt and I squeezed into the same section of the rotating door, even though we knew we weren’t supposed to due to warnings everywhere (so rebellious and crazy we are in our ripe old age) were by far the highlights of our visit.

Later that day I went for a wander and got lost which was fantastic. Walking around a city not quite knowing where you are going can be so exhilarating. I eventually ended up right were I was wanting to go later in the day which was pure coincidence, I found myself in the lively and fun place called Covent Garden. Famous for it’s stalls, artsy nature and lots of street entertainers performing great acrobatic stunts, standing frozen like a statue or mesmerizing the audience with magic.

LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM
In one corner of Covent Garden is the London Transport Museum. When I lived in London I never wanted to go to this   museum as it’s what tourists visited. But now as I AM a tourist I thought it would be fun to check out. It covers the story of transportation throughout the history of London, from the ferry boats on the Thames, the horse drawn taxis, the building of the road ways, the development of the underground train / tube system to potential futures for transportation in the city.

There were great little info bits like the following scattered around the museum “The word bus comes from ‘omnibus’ which means ‘for all’ in Latin”. Seeing inside the old tube trains was very interesting, not just seeing how the interior used to be but looking at the style of advertising that was done 30 years ago (showing old dial telephones for example) – how times have changed.

I was looking at one of the old Trolley Busses (the type that is connected to electric wires above the road) when an elderly gentleman came up to me and started to reminisce about when he caught this type of bus to school as a child. The one we were looking at had the open back of the bus so you could jump off and on. He said it made a wonderful excuse if you were ever late for school to blame it on these connecting bars as  they sometimes came loose and the bus driver had to spend time reconnecting them. It was great to see him come alive while telling this story,- it was rich and filled with passion. There was a disturbing statistic next to the bus that read as follows “In 1901 when nearly all traffic was horse drawn, there were 186 fatal road accidents in the London County Council. By 1929, when the motor vehicles dominated, there were 1362 deaths and 55,000 injuries”. This high number of deaths is what lead to rules like speed limit, give way signs etc being introduced to London, much needed indeed.

The current temporary exhibition is called ‘Suburbia’ and explores the explosion of growth of London outside the city boundaries and into the suburbs over the last 60 years. The exhibition looks at how public transportation has helped to create and then sustain this suburban lifestyle. “From daily commute to leisure travel, public transport makes living in the suburbs possible. Suburbia offers a job in town and a home in the country, rural peace and urban distraction. The best of both these worlds are connected by train, bus and tram”. There were lots of great old posters and real estate promotional  material which I have never seen before, I loved the stylized design that was reflective of the era and the type of language that was used; so different than in today’s society.

One of the last things I read on the way out of the exhibition was one of my favourites. It was in the section that reflected on present day and future transportation and I feel it is very reflective of today’s society. It read, “do you realize, some people drive to the gym to go on a running machine”, ah the irony.

DRINKS ON THE STREET
One thing I really miss about London is the after work drinks, it is a wonderful way for staff to bond and to get to know each other in a more relaxed environment than at the office. After the Transport Museum I walked through Covent Garden to Soho where there are lots of pubs and as the weather was sunny the streets were lined with people and their pints chatting and laughing.

SEE IMAGES ON FLICKR:
part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4

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