Over five years in London and I haven’t stepped one foot inside St Paul’s Cathedral though I have admired it form a far. Rita’s time is running short in London so she’s trying to knock off as many sights as possible including this one. Rache said she’d been here before but thought she would join us anyway. We decided to join one of the Cathedral’s “Super Tour” which at £3 for a 90 minute tour tremendous value for money. There is something so much more engaging with someone telling you a story than listening to a bland audio tour or trying to wander around yourself. Plus you get access to areas not normally available for the general touring public such as the geometric staircase and the Quire. You climb the dome separately from the tour.

The Old St Paul’s was gutted by the Great London Fire of 1666 and although it may have been able to be re-built it would have been practically from scratch so a new cathedral was commissioned. The primary architect was Christopher Wren. Christopher Wren went through a few designs before reaching the design that we see today. Internally he wanted lots of natural light so he refused to use any stained glass but plain glass instead. This was also for another reason – at the time he wanted people to learn how to read. Stained glass is historically used to tell biblical stories but he didn’t want people learning about the bible stories through the glass but by learning to read and write. Christopher Wren was not alone in his contribution to the Cathedral and the talents of many artists and craftsmen were necessary for construction and design. For example, Grinling Gibbons was responsible for most of the woodwork. Interestingly he had a way of demonstrating to the public who had or hadn’t paid their bills. Hidden amongst his carvings are pea pods. The unopened peas signify non-paying customers and opened one paying customers. The joke was that the Church always paid so the carvings were always opened pea pods.

No photos are allowed inside the Cathedral though you are allowed to take them in the Geometric Staircase – one aspect of the Cathedral which truly showcases Wren’s technological advancement. Apparently it was even used in one of the Harry Potter movies. When you see the stairs you wonder just how they manage to stay up – with each step supported by the one below it it would only take one step to be damaged for the whole thing to come down.

Another stunning aspect of the Cathedral are the Great West Doors. Each door weighs and astonishing one tonne! They are mainly used for Royalty and Lord Mayor entrances, not for us ordinary people. They are 72-feet high and absolutely massive but thanks to engineering genius can be opened simply using one a small twizzle type stick smoothly and without any great creaking.

You could imagine that building such a giant architectural marvel would cost a pretty penny but the Church absolutely loved Wren so he had access to the necessary funding. An example of this was when the Church said it was running out of money so they could only afford to pay everyone at half pay. Christopher Wren refused this and said I’ll take half pay and my craftsmen (who could get paid from their other jobs) would take half pay but not the workmen because they would starve without the money. And the Church paid up!

The greatest masterpiece of Wren’s has to be the Dome. The Dome was controversial because half of London didn’t want a dome and the other half didn’t think that Wren would know how to build one. He proved them all wrong. Wren wanted something huge and as a result the Dome is actually constructed of three domes – the inside dome, the outer lead dome and the middle dome made of brick to hold the outer roof up. You can climb the 530 steps to get to the top of the Dome for sweeping views across London.

Though you’d imagine that Wren would have a right be proud he proved to be a modest man. The only memorial for him is an inscription around the floor at the centre of the dome and on the plaque on his plain tomb in the crypt: “Lector, si monumentum requiris, Circumspice” meaning Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

The tour takes you through all this history as well as a quick look at the crypt and its famous occupants (including Wellington and Nelson.) In the crypt is also the Order of the British Empire (OBE) Chapel where you can get married (for a substantial price) if you can prove some connection (however distant) with an OBE recipient. In fact we arrived at the Dome just to see the end of a wedding! I was too late to snap a picture of the happy couple unfortunately:

After the tour was finished Rita and I made our way to the top of the Dome. The climb isn’t as hard as you imagine as there are three stages of the climb. The first break is the Whispering Gallery which comes after climbing 259 steps,

the next break is at the Stone Gallery which is after 119 steps (where you get your first glimpse of the promised view from the top)

before you take the final 152 steps to the Golden Gallery and the peak of the Dome. The final climb to the top is slow because you have to wait for the small area at the top to clear before you can get up there. It took us about 40 minutes slowly climbing to get up there. Definitely worth the wait on a clear day.

After the long day at St Paul’s we retired to a local pub where one of Rache’s roommates was a manage rand indulged in some Pimms. Rache and Rita couldn’t wait for glasses so started drinking from the jug ….

So Walking In My Mind at the Hayward Gallery has been billed as an expedition into the mysterious mental processes of creativity; about what goes on inside the artists’ head. If I’m to be honest some heads were just a little on the disturbing side.

The exhibition takes ten contemporary artists – some were new commissions and some existing commissions – and puts us, the viewer, right into their environments. You are surrounded by the pieces which apparently litter their mind as you walk around and through the pieces. I’m the first to admit that I am not very knowledgeable about art at all with all that hidden levels and deeper meaning stuff. My interests are simple – if I find the thing I’m looking to be interesting then it gets the thumbs up. That’s about it. If it has a little story to go along with it to explain it … all the better … so long as its straight-forward itself and not filled with artistic jargon.

This exhibition is something that needs to be experienced in person which is what Rita, Rache and I were doing tonight.

The artists’ creations which drew my attention included:

You’ll notice that most of my description above is the physical description of what I saw. I can’t even pretend to guess at the deeper meaning of the art but you get a little information pamphlet and there are plaques on the wall for your information.

On until the 6 September.

For my birthday Rehana planned a Scandinavian themed evening starting with drinks at the Absolut Icebar. I think its been around in London for a couple of years now and this is the first time I’ve been. I went to one in Cape Town and I was expecting something similar – a bar with and more than a few ice sculptures.

We were given big thermal capes to wear which also came with some attached gloves. Gloves which Rehana really appreciated because she soon got quite cold! It was minus 5 degrees in there apparently so I could understand but of course me and my freakish tolerance for colder temps meant it wasn’t until at the end of our session that I started to feel it.

The space in the Absolute Icebar was surprisingly small and hardly any ice sculptures though there were a few seats carved out or blocked up. We were lucky that there were only about ten of us in the bar so we had plenty of space to spread out. Apparently they re-design the bar every six months (I guess to encourage repeat customers.) The theme tonight was an industrial-type theme with cog wheels and pipes along the walls.

With entry you are given one free drink which you drink from shot glasses made of ice. The glasses are more difficult to drink from than you can imagine. They make the rim quite thick so if you don’t have a big mouth you’re likely to dribble it everywhere! Ha ha.

Its an interesting concept and must be a huge money maker for the bar. Sessions are 40 minutes long so not only do they get the customers for the icebar but then more than likely the customers are going to retire in the bar or have a meal in the restaurant. We however were on the way to the Nordic ….

Rita is a keen blader and was super keen to go out for a blade in Regent’s Park. I brought my blades over about three years ago but haven’t been out on them because to be honest I suck at roller blading! I can get going on them but stopping just seems out of my skill set. So, with Rita’s invite, I thought it would be a good time to blow the dust off (literally) and try them out.

We headed to Regent’s Park but failed to see the signs at the entrance declaring no skating allowed in the park. It wasn’t until we were blading past this old woman who shouted abuse at us about skating being dangerous and not allowed in the park that we cottoned on. Oops! The skating wasn’t coming along so successfully at any rate on my half. Rita, though, is a whiz. For example, we were just standing at the map looking for a bike track or something we could blade and I fell over and bunged my knee!

Since we were in Regent’s Park we decided to go for a bit of a walk around. In particular we visited Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens. Both the gardens and the day were glorious:

The wildlife were pretty cute too:

After walking around a bit in Regent’s Park we decided to head to Hyde Park to fit in some more blading. To be honest I was a bit nervous after the rubbish performance at Regent’s Park. I managed to skate for about 200 metres before disaster struck. The path wasn’t particularly hilly (probably about a five degree incline) but I couldn’t slow myself down. Next thing I knew I kissing the ground also somehow spinning myself into the wrong direction!

Unfortunately I didn’t have any safety gear (I know – not a good move) so I got a boo boo on my elbow. 🙁

After this I left Rita to the blading and me doing a fast walk behind her. We ended up down at the Serpentine. We were going to try and get a pedalo but the brilliant day meant the queues were huge so we settled for some ice-cream and girly-talk instead.

Cambridge is a short (45 minute) train journey from King’s Cross and a totally doable day trip from London so Rache gathered a few of us for today’s journey. The main aim was just to have a day away from London and get some punting in – so nothing too stressful. Cambridge is also Rache’s kind of second home as she spent about four months working and living there about three years ago but hasn’t been back since so it was kind of like a reunion visit for her.

Today was the perfect day for the trip – the sun was out, not too many gray clouds in the sky and fairly warm. I may sound surprised because it is after all summer … but it’s the English summer. Enough said.

The last time I was in Cambridge was 2003 – the first time I visited England and that was such a short visit (in Winter) that I all I remember seeing was the Round Church and a couple of the colleges. This time around the visit was noticeably longer (we finally got back to London at 10pm tonight having left at 10am this morning …)

Our first stop was ice cream:

And then punting.

Cam, Rita, Ben and I took turns taking our punt down the river Cam. It was hard going. As I went last I was able to take advantage of the “learning” from the other punters and actually managed to steer the punt generally in the right direction. It was hard work though trying to avoid the other punts (there was a lot of traffic on the river Cam) and the eye candy was a little distracting too. 🙂

The eye candy:

After punting and grabbing a bite to eat we headed into the high street for a walk and stroll past the colleges then hopped on the hop on hop off bus for a quick whirlwind drive around town:

The bus was followed by a walk in the park and pub crawl of sorts:

Ending at the final pub where we had some dinner and has some tasty blue cider:

Today felt like the longest sight-seeing days ever! Well, not really but by the time 10pm rolled around both Teesh and I were ready to hit the sack! The last month traveling, and for me long hours at work, have obviously started to wear us down.

We started the morning waking up very early to get to Madame Tussaud’s at opening. I had purchased our tickets months and months ago to make sure we got opening entry times (to save us standing in long lines) but I knew from past experience that if you don’t get there early enough and before most the crowds arrive – trying to get around getting photos of all the wax figures inside could prove very challenging. Madame Tussaud’s was apparently supposed to open at 9am but by the time we got to Baker Street it was still quite early at about 8.25. Even at that time, however, there was already a long queue forming. We were going to head to Regent’s Park for a quick stroll but thought it would be best to get in line and wait. Lucky we did because the line got infinitely longer after we joined.

As I suspected even with Madame Tussaud’s being open for only five minutes by the time we got inside it was packed. For the most part people were conscious of others around them but the odd few made it awkward for everyone. Still, I think Teesh and I managed to get our pics relatively easily. Except for when we sat at Barack Obama’s presidential table with him next to us. People there was just outright rude and pushy.

Despite the fact that the wax figures bear a remarkable resemblance to their real life counterparts taking photos which show this are really difficult. I think its because of where the figures are looking – you have to get your camera in the exact spot necessary to make it look like they’re looking into it. Oh – just to show how real-life the figures are there is one figure who had been posed to look like paparazzi, taking a photo of Mel Gibson and Will Smith. Teesh ran into the figure and actually apologised to it because she though it was real! Cracked me up!

At the end of our visit to Madame Tussaud’s we were famished so we headed to Giraffe at Marylebone for a yummy breakfast and then headed on to our next item on the itinerary – a (free) one hour tour of the National Gallery.

Tours at the National Gallery are offered at 11.30 and 2.30 daily and like the British Museum the tour you get is likely to be different every visit. The only drawback to free tours are the fact that there is normally no limit to the number that can be accepted in the group. Our group was surprisingly large nearing I would think about 25-30. Though the tour was good and gave a good snapshot of some of the collections in the National Gallery the group was really too big. For the most part I could hear the tour guide but seeing the art was another matter. Why do tall people always want to stand right at the front?! At least some of the more considerate people actually sat down when they got to the front.

From the National Gallery it was off to the London Eye – for only my fourth time! Heh heh. Even though we’d pre-bought our tickets there was a rather long snaking line that confronted us when we turned up at our allotted timeslot. Bit disappointing to have to wait (we were at least half an hour in the queue I reckon) but the line always felt like it was moving forward at least.

I never know what to think about the London Eye. Sure you have an absolutely amazing view point to see most of London but the fact you’re stuck in the pod for the half hour it takes to go around and though they limit how many go into the pod its still pretty chock full. Many end up hogging one part of a window or another which is not really fair to others in the pod. At least we had some pretty clear air.

Teesh has been fairly lucky with the weather in London this weekend. Before she got on to her eurostar train to Brussels we spent a couple of hours taking a walk in Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park. It was nice enough that people were even sailing in the Round Pond … with remote controlled boats that is!