Blogging (and walking) London alone

So did I make it to my three London plays? The Play That Went Wrong, The Lion King, and Hadestown. I’m sure that you had your doubts – given my track record of attending only half of many plays – but I’m super proud. I went to each play and watched the entire thing. The standout was Hadestown. I saw the movie version of Hadestown just a few weeks ago and went right home to buy a ticket to the live London show.

Ron adored musicals. He mostly refused to see stage plays, but a musical? Always. I’m ambivalent about many of them but once in a while there’s something special and that’s how I felt about Hadestown. Watching it, I was heartbroken because all I wanted was Ron sitting there with me – discovering the magic at the same time and instead he’s out there in the universe somewhere and I can’t find him even though I would give so much to know where he is.

I’m headed to Paris now to catch an organized tour, which is always a relief in some way as I can stop keeping track of so many details, but traveling solo to a city like London – one I’ve had the good fortune to visit many times and so know my way around – well that’s a travel highlight.

I did a few organized walking tours this time – a Hidden London Underground tour of a closed tube station area and a Jewish history tour – but my favorite London walks were my random strolls.

The Underground tour took us into the Holborn station and my main report is that wow is it filthy down there:

I made the mistake of using the handrail as we went down a 196-step curving staircase, and found myself covered with soot – both hands, so I tried to listen to the tour guide, but mostly I was trying not to touch my face or clothing. It must have been nearly 90 degrees down there as well – and I was wearing my new Patagonia winter coat. Taking it off required the use of my hands – which would definitely have transferred black oil/soot onto my beloved green coat so, in the interest in fashion (me and Queen Elizabeth II!), both you and I got very little out of the tour.

I can tell you that Holborn was used as a bomb shelter during World War II:

But it was also apparently used as a command station for tube operations. A small group of engineers and managers lived down there 24 hours a day – bedrooms were retrofitted in, along with a small dining room and it was a guarded London secret.

In keeping with my legal training, I was also supposed to go to the Sir John Soane’s Museum, home of a famous English architect. The house has been frozen in time since 1837, filled with his cool furniture and light fixtures (apparently). If I were a more patient person, we could all wander through, looking at his collection of furniture and design items.

Look, for example, at his spectacular dining room that I did not see:

And I also did not see this dome room:

I walked by a couple of times and there was a perpetual and slow-moving line and I kept thinking about the super-hot line back at the Natural History Museum and so I sat down on a bench in a nearby park and tried to figure out something else to do.

I noticed a pretty building in front of me and discovered it was the Hunterian Museum and decided to change the itinerary yet again.

I stopped for lunch in their cafe and had the most inexpensive meal of a trip where I am routinely paying 5 pounds (nearly 7 dollars) for a drink. This entire meal was 5 pounds and if you’re squeamish, eat after you tour the Hunterian museum and not before, or maybe not at all. Or maybe if you’re squeamish, go back across the street and wait in line at Sir John Soane’s.

The Hunterian is devoted to the history of pathology and surgery – walls and walls of specimens…more than 2000, documentation of the development of disease treatment, and surgery breakthroughs. It’s an interesting yet disturbing place.

Here’s an exhibit that will help us all understand skin grafting techniques:

This is an artificial heart, from 1981:

You need to look carefully at this one. It’s a horse fetus, wrapped up in its amniotic sac:

A skull eaten away by syphilis:

I also found a little bit of time to go in what has become my favorite museum in London – the Tate Modern…sorry once again, Kris:

The Tate Modern captures what I like best about art – that it can be bold, zany, jarring, unexpected and large, of course. If it’s big, I know for sure it’s art! Here’s a couple of new finds from my visit:

This is Untitled, by Rudolf Stingel, from 1993 – an interactive piece of large orange carpet that you can change by smooshing it around, revealing, apparently, the theme that art is a collaborative and democratic process:

And here is Machine No. 6 by Shinkichi Tajiri, from 1967, which is a protest of governmental spending on military technology:

Surprise! The below sign I came across in a tube station isn’t art from the Tate but I feel like it could be – a commentary on government spending in that I feel it would have been far cheaper and quicker to refill the eyewash instead of creating a “missing eyewash” sign, but of course, I am not a government spender:

No need to worry if you join Kris in refusing to enter the Tate Modern – London is one big art gallery and my strolls are endlessly entertaining.

This globe sits on the campus of the London School of Economics:

I came across this right outside of Liverpool Station – Infinite Accumulation by Yayoi Kusama – her attempt to translate her signature polka dot art into 3D form:

There’s also a lot of (unintentional?) juxtapositional architecture that I really love.

Here is the Gherkin, from 2003, with a 1532 Anglican Church in front:

This is the Royal Exchange, from 1844, with 22 Bishopsgate in the background, a 62-story skyscraper from 2020.

Finally, below is the London Sea Life Aquarium building from 1922…originally the headquarters for local government. Despite touring aquariums in every city we visit, Ron and I never got here and so I went alone…pragmatic, dogmatic me…directing my hopes about Ron’s existence and spirit and immortality out into the world.

Grief. Try as I might to just write a travel blog – well it’s so much more complicated than I ever imagined.