Today wasn't too too exciting but it was another day on the town in London so that's always fun. We had to be at the Victoria & Albert Museum at 10am so we all got up and left our flat by 9:20. We got on and off the tube and I was really surprised at that we didn't even have to leave the tube station to enter the museum! There was an entrance through the tunnel of the station. We all went inside to wait for the rest of the group. In the lobby, they had seats that were giant tops. When you sat in them, you felt like you were about to fall over. Then we started our tour.
One of the first things we looked at and one of my favorites was a room. They brought an entire room and put it into the museum. It was a room that was in a merchants house. It was built in 1606. I thought it was interesting that back then they didn't have interior designers or anyone to guide you decorating your house. It was all up to the owner of the house. The owner didn't have a family crest of his own so he had the Royal crest put above his mantel. This was accepted because it was seen as an act of allegiance. We could tell that James I was king at the time because there was a unicorn on the right side of the crest. Before his rule, it had been a dragon, I think. The ceiling of the room was so ornate. The walls were oak wooden paneling and had flat columns.
My next favorite was seeing a model of the Crystal Palace where the National Exhibition was in 1862. At the time, it cost 1 shilling to go see. The tour guide told us that the event made millions of dollars. Some of that money paid for the construction of the V&A. (There was a part of the museum where you could look through a little window and see part of the original V&A building, which was also really cool.) There were 2 vases taken from the exhibition to be displayed in the museum. They were gold and of course extravagant. One had Victoria's face on it and the other had Albert's.
Then we saw the most beautiful carpet. It was laid out in the middle of the floor was a huge glass case around it and lights shining on it to show the detail. William Morris was responsible for having the carpet in the museum. What he didn't know at the time was that it was one of two. It was from the 1500s and was made with 10 different colors - 3 reds, 3 blues, black, green, brown, and yellow. The carpet was purchased for 2,000 pounds back then to be displayed in the museum. The best part about the carpet is the 2 lanterns on either side. If you sit at the foot of the carpet and look down it, the lanterns look the same exact size. However, if you look from the side, you can tell one is bigger than the other. They're not sure if this was an early attempt at perspective or if it was on purpose because of the belief that anything that was perfect and manmade was a disgrace to God so sometimes they would purposefully make a flaw.
After we left the museum, we walked around the South Kensington area for a little while. It was so beautiful and an area that we haven't been able to explore before. We took the tube back to our flat and ate lunch. Then we walked to the university union for class. The first half of class was on London's history starting in 43AD. The second half of the class was about psychogeography and myths. I think this was everyone's favorite part. We talked about Jack the Ripper and the Kray twins. Then we picked up dinner from the grocery store and hung out at our flat for the rest of the night.
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