an afternoon in london

I hit the town to visit a couple attractions last Sunday. My first stop was the Cortauld Gallery, a small art gallery that looks like it's housed in some aristocrat's residence:



Despite its small size (and I mean REALLY small), the Cortauld had an impressive collection of art, including many works by famous impressionist painters. There were works by famous artists like Monet, Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat and Cezanne.











My main purpose in going there was to see the current exhibit of Cezanne's card player paintings. Cezanne did a number of paintings of peasants and ordinary folk playing cards. I saw a poster in the subway for the exhibit and it sounded interesting, so...







When I was done in the gallery (took less than an hour, since it was so small), I went outside and noticed that an ice skating rink had been set up in the courtyard of the gallery/other surrounding buildings. I decided this would be another great opportunity to go into stalker mode and take pictures of random people:











Turns out that skating rinks are a great place to see all sorts of emotions and facial expressions, particularly since most people don't know how to skate.

Afterward, I got back on the tube and went back a couple stops to the Natural History Museum. As its name implies, this museum contains all sorts of exhibits devoted to geology, paleontology, nature and the like. This would be a paradise for my nephews. In their honor, here are some fossils:

Megatherium:


Diplodocus (I think):


The Natural History Museum is one of the coolest buildings I've ever been in. Check out the architecture:





Also cool was this escalator I rode into one of the geology exhibits:


My favorite part of my visit was the nature photography exhibit that was going. I hadn't known about it, so this was a special treat and well worth the GBP9.00 I had to pay to get in. Pictures weren't allowed in that part of the museum, unfortunately.

Outside the museum, I found a winter carnival going, which included a merry-go-round and another ice skating rink. You guessed it--time to go back into stalker mode to take more random photos:



My man here totally biffed it after attempting the jump you see here:




The most colorfully dressed busker I found in the tunnel to the subway:


I made it back home Friday night, after having just missed Snowpocalypse UK (it actually started right before my flight took off). If I'm going to have to deal with snow, I'm glad I live in a place like MN, where the local government can handle the snow and people don't freak out about it.