Crazy Chilean Parties, And The Awesome Imperial War Museum (Days 147 - 148)

(Being the events of:)
MAY 29 - 30, 2011

6 days.
And only 5 days until I'm stateside.
Crazy.
It's just a countdown now; trying to get a few last museums and things in, as well planning to visit my favorite London spots and food joints, before I haul out of here.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that little number with the context of having started packing yesterday. Unreal where all the time has gone. And how much stuff I've managed to fit into my duffel. I feel like 90% of my things (that I'm taking home, at least..) are already packed into just that one bag. Crossing my fingers it's under 50 pounds - just kinda going off an estimation..

But after packing for a while yesterday, I gave into my buddy Pablo's request to go drink with him and all his Chilean pals. I wasn't too sure if I wanted to go out or take it easy, but Pablo twisted my arm with the words "Do it!", which I of course could not deny. Cue the easy button.

So I met up with him and a couple of his friends who I'd met before, but then the Chilean's just started flowing in. Like, who knew there were this many people from Chile in London, and that they all somehow know each other?! It was crazy, but a lot of fun. I've discovered that the more you drink, the more you believe that you can pretend to understand spanish. Just nod and laugh.. and say things like 'You have pretty eyes' or 'You are very nice' in Spanish to all the girls, courtesy of Pablo whispering the translation into my ear.. Haha I'll miss that guy. Guess I'll have to go visit them all down in Chile sometime!

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Today, after getting over some lingering effects from the previous night, I decided to go check out the Imperial War Museum, which I'd been very excited to go see - I was not disappointed. The place is huge and awesome, with exhibits for, and guns/vehicles/machines/clothing/etc from, almost every war since WWI. And thank god I could take pictures, unlike most of the museums here!

Very neat place

Absolutely massive guns, I think taken off a couple of British warships

Now that's some firepower

Ahh planes! I love planes.

And tanks! Which I also love. Looks similar to a German 'Tiger' tank, but I can't remember.

I think that's a British Mark V tank on the left. I only know some of them, so I might be wrong. 

But hey. Sue me.

And more huge guns!

Maybe the American M4A2..?

Hmm looks British.. Maybe the one of the 'Churchill' models..?

Guy on the right might be compensating for something..

More big guns.. Probably from a warship, or a land emplacement that would face the ocean

A little 2-man Italian 'submarine' that could submerge close to an enemy ship while in harbor and place explosives underneath. Crazy Italians..

British 'Grant' tank..? Monty's (Montgomery, of course; the big guy himself) favorite form of transportation

A look inside a submarine: tiny cots and Heinz food!

Then down into the World War I section, with old British formal uniforms

.. and infantry

Machine guns

Infantry rifles and handguns, from various countries; including the German Luger (far right pistol) and American Colt-.45 (below it)

Battlefield model

British front trench line to the left, no-man's land in the center, and the German front line trench on the right.

Down in the trenches!

Wasn't gonna risk going blind with a flash in that dark room.. but it was neat: you walked through the 'trench' and looked in on scenes where mannequins portrayed daily trench habits and happenings.

Then onto the WWII section..

Crazy guy, that Hitler fella

These are the things they'd be dropping on London. Insane. No wonder there was so much destruction.

Massive battleship

More soldiers.

"Operation Overlord". D-Day.

A Rolls Royce-manufactured plane engine. Had no idea they used to produce those.

Tailwing of a German fighter jet. This guy meant business: each one of those little pained planes represents a 'kill' (shot down an enemy plane), each with a date underneath. 121 total over a couple years. The most in one day = 9. 

Model of a plane

Of course there were more sections in between all of these that encompassed campaigns throughout North Africa, Italy, Japan, etc. but I didn't get any pictures of those. TONS of stuff though. Amazing.

Taken from a German building at the end of the war. Bullet holes can still be seen in the wings!

Then onto other confrontations after 1945.. here, the Warsaw Pact and NATO are highlighted.

A Vietnam section (previous to it were the Cold War, Korea, etc)

Makes me think of the scene from 'Apocalypse Now' with the helicopters, with 'Ride of the Valkyries' playing in the background

More guns and planes! Wish I knew more about specific planes, like I do about some of those tanks. I always like planes more anyway. I think they're harder to recognize though..

Inside one of the planes

.. and another one!

Vroom! Always wanted to be a pilot..

After that, I checked out the holocaust exhibition, which really was intense and moving. No pictures allowed though, which I understand. Takes you through the whole timeline: from the outbreak of the war and people being rounded up; to concentration camps, extermination, and mass graves; to ghettos and death squads; and finally to liberation.

Lots of emotion, especially with the pictures/videos/mementos and the old concentration camp uniforms on display. Intense stuff.

Last but not least, I kinda power-walked through the 'Secret War' section that outlined the history of spies during the various wars, as well as some stuff on MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. I expected more crazy gadgets and stuff, James Bond-style, but other than a couple hidden-radio-in-the-suitcase cases and some neat little hidden-compartment items (batteries, haribrushes, etc. with secret compartments for storing things!), there wasn't much of what I expected. I'm sure there was more neat stuff there to see, but the Museum was closing so I had to kinda rush through it.

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After that, I came home (picking up some yummy Chinese for dinner on the way back!) and packed for a bit. Almost done now! My room looks so sad without any of the posters and postcards on the walls.. oh well. I still got a couple more days! I'm thinking I may check out the National History and Science museums tomorrow - I've already been there, but didn't get to see everything, so we'll see! Then tomorrow night, I'm going to see Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Globe theatre!

So expect more fun posts in the near future! 

Good music of the moment:

The Kooks - "Sofa Song", off their album, "Inside In/Inside Out"

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Only a couple days left!

Cheers!

Camden Market, A Night Out, And The National Gallery (Days 144 - 146)

(Being the carefree events of:)
MAY 26 - 28, 2011

After all those days studying, it sure felt good to wake up and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on Thursday. Slept in, waking up to the sound of pouring rain on my window, which only meant one thing: sweatpants, TV, and no worries. The countdown to home has begun; coincidentally, there seems to be a strong correlation between the amount of money I have and how many days I have left here. Let's just hope that X-Y plot doesn't cross the origin, if you know what I mean. Woah. Too much math/thinking. Better stop while I'm ahead and get on with whatever inane dribble I'm about to talk about regarding some activities I'd partaken in over the past couple days..

But, like I said, Thursday (the first day of freedom from schoolwork!) was a lazy day. No use going out into the storm, or spending money for that matter. So I was all about catching up in Game of Thrones for a while, which did get pretty good like I hoped it would; looking forward to the next couple of episodes, but now that I'm caught up, I have to wait for a new one every week! Man, I forgot how nice it is to start watching a show when it's already several seasons in and I can just watch episode after episode. Not that I do that..

Other than that, watched my favorite flick, 'Shawshank Redemption' (still awesome, even after the 300th viewing) while I typed up that last post, then popped in the 2006 British futuristic dystopian drama 'Children of Men' before heading to bed. Real good film that I'd been meaning to watch for a long time; basically, it's set in a 2027 dystopian London (relevant, eh?) where the world hasn't seen a new child born in 17 years and has basically gone to hell. Solid performances and some great action.

Friday was pretty much a day of straight good times: woke up, ate lunch, popped open a couple beers and watched Big Bang Theory with some friends; eventually we headed to Camden Market, a sort of.. umm.. 'alternative' market, as I'll get to. It's a neat area and I was glad to check it out before I'm gone for good! Now I can check it off my (short!) list of places I wanted to get to.

It starts off innocent enough, but we're not into the actual 'Camden Market' yet.

.. there we go.

Tattoo/piercing parlors in every other building; goth/metal stores, record and comic book shops galore. I think that's even a KFC on the left there - what more do you need!

Pretty neat area: but I'm pretty content with just walking around rather than actually shopping anywhere around here.. but I know where to go the next time I'm looking to get some ass-less leather chaps, and that giant dragon tattoo on my.. well, I best not say..

.. I was going to say my back, what were you thinking?! Geez..

No idea what river this is. Tried to follow it on Google Maps, but it just kinda.. ends.. In the middle of a neighborhood. Crazy brits.

Down in the more market-y area of Caden. Lots of clothing and food booths.

Neat place!

This section was real cool, but you couldn't take pictures of the stalls' merchandise inside.. There was everything from antiques to vintage clothing/pop culture items, musical instruments to toys. Crazy 

And there were those big random horses everywhere.

Indian-themed section with several hookah bars and little food carts

Oh man, this place was just too ridiculous to pass up.. wish they allowed pictures inside to give you guys a better idea of what we're dealing with, cause I don't even think I know.. basically, you lose all hearing when you step in due to the obnoxiously loud dub-step and house music, then you're half blinded by the ridiculous amounts of glow-in-the-dark or fluorescent rave-themed lighting/clothing. But then you realize the place is HUGE. It's got three floors and a freaking escalator. Top floor's got your basic rave needs (wasn't aware those extended beyond glow-sticks and ecstasy; apparently there's a whole industry here..?); next level down is mostly clothing, which starts off with recognizable articles of clothing: shirts! and pants! hey, I know what those are! But then.. oh man, then.. it just gets.. weirder.. We're talking you've-suddenly-stepped-into-a-store-from-the-Jetson's weird. I've seen some of these outfits in the movie 'The Fifth Element' (though no naked Milla Jovavich, sadly..): everything from bright orange overalls and 'dresses' with built-in hula hoops, to women's shirts with no chest section (doesn't that just defeat the purpose..? not that I'm complaining..). But even after all that, when you've had a good laugh at the expense of the supremely ridiculous people actually attempting to shop there (granted, 75% had to be doing exactly what we were doing), you get to the bottom floor. I guess it was inevitable. Yup, the kinky sex-shop section, complete with vibrators in glass cases, leather whips on the walls, and blow-up dolls in cans. Well. How. About. That.

I feel dirty just typing all that. Man, wish I could have just taken some pictures and been done with it.. still trying to get over how people stand to work in a place like that (although one guy fit right in with his space goggles and leather outfit. man.). The music alone would have killed me.

A breath of ecstasy-free air!

.. and then the sun came out! So we made our way back towards home.

Camden was neat, glad I got to see it. Later, met up with some more people for dinner at an Indian place around the corner that had HUGE portions for the relatively moderate prices. Fine by me! Grabbed more beer and such on the way back, then hung out in one of our kitchens for a while before eventually heading a bar down the road. Fun night!

Today, slept in and eventually roused myself enough to put on jeans and finally go check out the National Gallery up in Trafalgar Square!

Major partying going down in Trafalgar due to the Barcalona v. Manchester United Champions League final at Wembley stadium this afternoon.

TONS of Barca fans.

The National Gallery! Yes, that big 'Free Admission' sign is half the appeal.. but I do enjoy it's fantastic collection of art!

A couple favorites: Francisquet Millet's "Mountain Landscape with Lightning", and Claude's "Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba", as well as almost everything of Monet's and Seurat's that they had. Great stuff. And an absolutely beautiful building on the inside, if the awesome architecture on the outside was no indication! I must have seen (at least walked by/glanced at) almost every painting in the couple hours I was there, although I don't know if it's possible to study every painting there in one day, let alone read all their little plaques (which I must say, were much more helpful than the plaques in Italy that said more about why the painting was made instead of what it's actually of. Plus, I don't speak Italian, so there ya go.). The place is huge, with over 2,300 works dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. But I'm content with how much I got to see!

Thought about putting pictures of those pieces on here, but hey, I'm not getting sued. Google them if you're that curious!

Aaaaaand that was about it. Spent a good amount of money yesterday, so I might just take it easy tonight unless I hear of anything going on.. Tomorrow, I might actually start packing, which just seems unreal to say; can't believe I'll be home in a week. Man. I'm looking forward to it though. Excited to see all my friends and family again. Though I'll definitely miss London..

.. but I'm not gone yet! Still a couple things left to see!! Expect those posts in the near future.

Good music for exploring the National Gallery:

Anything off Bon Iver's album 'For Emma, Forever Ago' or Sufjan Steven's 'Illinois'

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One more week..

Cheers!