London – Day 22

I really love art history days. Today we learned about the Grand Tour and collection in the 18th century. In the afternoon we went to the Sir John Soane museum. It is supposedly the best house museum in the world. Soane was a neo-classical architect (Bank of England), and he bought three houses in Lincoln’s Inn Field and would demolish them then build them back up. He created a half house, half museum. He collected all sorts of architectural, sculpture, paintings from ancient Rome. But the museum is not that big and it is packed. They don’t let you take bags inside because you would probably knock something priceless over. I loved it. I’m considering writing my final paper on Sir John Soane as a collector and essentially curator and museum creator. They sadly don’t allow photography inside. Afterwards we went to the Enlightenment Galleries in the British Museum. They have redone the wing to what it would have looked like during the Enlightenment. It is full of books (being the first place of the British Library) and all sorts of medical, scientific, artistic discoveries. Pretty great to have that basically in my own front yard!

I went out to dinner tonight with Elizabeth and a friend she was just introduced to named Ally. Ally is from North Carolina and has been in London since October. We went to a restaurant called Crazy Homies. It is actually a Mexican restaurant! Which are fairly new to London. They say it is street style food…which basically means tacos, burritos, enchiladas. We had chips and guacamole, and for dinner I had the spiced chicken burrito. Inside there was rice, black beans, and chicken, and on top – guacamole and sour cream. It came with shredded lettuce on the side which sort of resembled a salad, but it had olives on top so I didn’t eat it. This restaurant is in my food book I brought and it said you had to end the meal with their homemade churros. So of course I had to, and it came with chocolate dipping sauce! The churros were made into rings though, with the two ends touching. I thought that was kind of strange. Overall is was good. but it was nowhere near as good as Mexican food in the states. For now, it will do. The atmosphere was pretty cool thought, it was a really small place. On Thursday nights they bring in this …DJ on wheels, and it is an older guy playing classic 50s Rock and Roll. Then he has games that you can win prizes for. It was fun! And definitely a different type of night out.

Sir John Soane Museum (taken from the internet – how nuts is that?)

British Museum

Enlightenment Gallery