Goodbye Sweet Tea. Hello UK!: A Month Later and I've Only Cracked the Surface of My Life as a Tourist

Thursday afternoon on a particularly gloomy day in London, I decided that it was the perfect afternoon to tackle the National Gallery. It was a wonderful afternoon spent absorbing so many of the masterpieces that I have spent many years studying in Art History classes. I especially loved the van Gogh collection, as I’ve done significant studying of his life and work, and I love the ability of his art to show his extreme manic and depressive states. He has such a unique ability to transport people with his work. Spending several hours in the gallery was exactly the kind of artistic nourishment I needed. So much about contemporary art and especially art theory convolutes art for me, and it becomes more about people enjoying the sound of their own voices rather than allowing the art to have its own power on people. During those hours I was transported to so many different places, times and emotions, and I ended up both physically and mentally exhausted. It was such a wonderful reminder to me about what I love about art and the ability of art to open up new avenues of creative thinking. I wandered into the gallery’s education centre and there was an exhibit by local school children relating art programming to literacy as the children created narratives based on images they saw in the gallery. Art is such a powerful tool in learning, yet it’s sad that in educational institutions it’s often the first subject area cut in today’s economic crisis. Following the day in the gallery, I very much wanted to grab a quick bite to eat, but unfortunately this was during my period of poverty with a blocked home bank card and no UK account yet… Luckily, in my wanderings I came across the Covent Garden Market. Apparently, on Thursdays (just my luck!) there is a food market with local restaurants having booths of food (and a couple of free samples) aaand a cooking demo from a fancy restaurant. I watched the cooking demo and made sure to stand right where the waiter with free samples was going out into the crowds. I dined on a delicious scallop with bacon and shrimp salad, all for free J I also had dinner-time entertainment in the form of a street performer juggling knives on a unicycle in his pink boxers; I mean what else could you ask for in a night out in London?