Yesterday was a busy day! First I met Ashley and her friend Sean at the British Museum for a little under an hour, walking through some ancient Egyptian rooms and Mesopotamian rooms. We saw the preserved body of a person from 3,400 BC! It still had skin! They had to go meet a friend of Sean's at 2 pm, so I just started walking in the general direction of Trafalgar Square.
It was a beautiful day, and warmer than any day we've had so far. I was wearing a 3/4 length sleeve shirt and a unbuttoned cardigan sweater without a scarf or jacket! I managed to walk all
the way to Trafalgar Square without getting lost or looking at my map (though I'm sure I took an indirect route). There were people everywhere - probably a combination of the good weather and the fact that kids across Britain have a school holiday this week.When I got to the square it was simply teeming with people and street performers. I decided to revisit the National Gallery and thus walked through probably 20 rooms of paintings. I don't like the way the gallery is set up because there are so many doors off of each room, each opening into another room that has more doors that go to other rooms. It is such a maze and it is hard to keep straight where you've been and what you've missed. I wish you could just start in gallery 1 and
follow it through all the way. That way, when you were tired, you could know you'd already seen 1-20, and come back next time and do 20-40. Anyway, I did see a lot of wonderful paintings that I loved, including some of Haarlem which is the city in the Netherlands that Lieselotte is from. It looks just lovely - I can't wait to go there with her and see it in person!Visibility was very good yesterday and from the steps of the National Gallery one could see all the way to Big Ben quite clearly. I decided that I would walk to it since I hadn't been in that area so far this trip. I took pictures of Big Ben, the London Eye, Parliament and Westminster Abby up close and simply enjoyed the weather. I tried to take a bus home so I could see the sights on the way, but I couldn't find a bus that was going where I wanted it to, so I ended up taking the tube instead. (By this point my feet were hurting a good bit and I couldn't walk home, especially if I wanted to dance that night).
After I got back and had dinner, watched Grey's Anatomy online, and talked to Tiffany and Krystle on the phone, it was time for Argentine Tango. I found out about different tango venues online the other day, and Monday nights they have "practicas" from 9pm to 11:30pm in a
building not 10 minutes walk from my flat. Practicas are just open dance floor time to practice moves in a less formal setting than a milonga (which is a formal Argentine Tango dance). It was £5 (currently about $7), which is sort of a lot just for a practica, but I am finding out that a common saying in London is "Nothing is free in London." Great. Anyway, I did get to dance with several good dancers, and one guy in particular who was from Florence was quite good and was very into the dance. He reminded me of my tango partner back home and I liked the fact that he was very interested in perfecting the steps and trying out new steps instead of hitting on me. He spoke English all right, but I could tell it was hard for him to understand me - I think I talk faster than he could keep up.I danced from 9:15 until 11:15, and then my feet were in such pain that I had to stop and limp home. lol I was kicked/stepped on several times throughout the night and my toenails were certainly worse for the wear. The dance floor was really good though and I look forward to going back again.
Today I'm having a down day - catching up on picture uploads, blog, maybe some TV shows, and some reading. Don't know what I'll do tomorrow before class...
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