Museums anyone?

Ric and I had quite a Saturday... after waking up nice and early (we were out of the house at 9:30am... not bad for a weekend), we headed down to South Kensington, where we thought we were going to watch an all-day debate event called The Battle of Ideas. The concept was cool - four debates happening almost every hour all day, you can just pick the ones you want to watch - but we didn't realize until we got there that it cost 50 pounds per person.

So, not wanting to spend 100 pounds to hear a few debates, we decided to make it a museum day since we were fortunately located in the heart of the museum mile. Photos from all four of our stops below, but the highlights were our first trip to the National History Museum, going to the Cold War Modern exhibit at the V&A (a culture art gallery), then onto the Tate Britain, also for the first time, to see an amazing Francis Bacon exhibit, and finishing at a University gallery that was showcasing middle eastern art. We made it home around 4pm and were quite impressed with everything we had seen!

Here's the Natural History Museum





What will be an ice skating rink... in front of the Natural History Museum



The V&A Gallery where we saw an exhibit called "Cold War Modern" about art in the 1960's, primarily from the US and Russia (that's Ric outside)



This is hanging in the lobby - very cool up close, it's made of glass





This is the cold and rainy entrance to the Tate Britain. We hadn't been to this gallery before and it was really nice. Saw an exhibit on the artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize (Britain's most prestigious art award according to the blooklet). We also saw a very popular Francis Bacon retrospective. I think it was the largest collection of his life's work ever to be brought together and it was really interesting to see his style change over the years, while his core approach remained consistent.



Inside the Tate Britain



This was a really cool "exhibit" where the artist had runners run through the gallery every 30 seconds. He instructed them to "run as if their lives depended on it." The first runner took us by surprise, but once we realized what was happening we stood and watched a few others come by. It was really interesting and different... glad we got to see it!



The last gallery on our list was at the School of Oriental and African Studies and was a showcase of middle eastern art. After seeing such amazing things in Dubai, we wanted to check it out. It was a reletively small show, but some interesting pieces. This was one of Ric's favorites:



Here's the gallery





Once we got back to Hampstead we popped into the Coffee Cup - supposedly London's oldest coffee shop which we hadn't previously been to. It's officially now our new favorite spot. Everything's really inexpensive on the menu and the food was yummy. Ric had a great goulash soup (which I went back and got the next day), and I had homemade raisin bread with tea. It was the perfect end to a very productive day!