Way Late Update – Part 3

I’m so lazy when it comes to updating. Man, I should show some devotion or something. *sigh*. Well, part 3 of my ‘way late update’ series, here for your entertainment!! 

London       

Thursday 26 November was a memorable day. Yes siree. The day where I would meet up in London with mister Jordi Wijnalda, a.k.a. LikeTheCastOfAFelliniMovie. I took the 9:05am bus from Canterbury Bus Station (the cheapest option) to Victoria Coach Station, arriving at about 11 o’clock, only to find a bench there and wait for Jordi to arrive. It was kind of strange to meet up with a friend from Amsterdam again. Just, the whole experience of talking Dutch again, and hearing stories of Amsterdam, and….I dunno. It was weird. It was great. Kind of humbling as well, knowing that there are people who miss you. It’s really sweet, receiving well wishes and everything. So, to those of you who feel directly addressed by this post, please consider this a massive shout out. MASSIVE shout out. I miss you guys too.       

Anyway, moving away from the sappy and cheesy now. Back to London. There was quite an amount of exploring done trying to find a cash machine in Victoria Station, and after that trying to find Jordi’s hotel. A typical, tiny hotel, with steep, narrow staircases and everything. Though, lucky for Jordi, he had an en-suite room. I shudder at the thought of having to shower in the public showers there. We left the big baggage in his hotel room (including the Sinterklaas goodies he brought back from home, omnomnom) and went to the ‘city centre’ (insofar as there is one in London, more accurate would be to talk about Westminster and Soho, really) to walk around a bit and find some nice restaurant/café for lunch.       

We went past Buckingham Palace, through St. James Park, and eventually past the Houses of Parliament, following the embankment. I knew there was an Italian restaurant there (Pizza Express. For those who are reading this post and were there at the CSW Foreign Trip to London: yes, that is the restaurant where we were mistaken for Germans) so we decided to get our lunch there. It was a really nice oven pasta dish, with red onions, gorgonzola cheese and chicken. I’m not normally a fan of gorgonzola, but it worked out fine in this dish.       

Italian Lunch @ Pizza Express, London Embankment

Tummies filled (no more ‘knaagjes in mijn maagje’) we did the culturally responsible thing and went to Tate Britain (near Pizza Express). God, I love free museum entry. And Tate Britain was quite impressive. Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take pictures of the painting, but darn it, there were some pretty impressive ones. Being way too lazy to write down the names of all the painters that intrigued me, I simply took quick snapshots of the plaques. They had quite a few paintings by John Constable, which made me very happy, but three works by John Martin took my breath away.       

The first, which I absolutely love (though, as with “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey”, no picture found online does the painting justice) is “The Great Day of His Wrath” (1851-1853). Quoted directly from the plaque:       

This painting forms part of a triptych of ‘judgment pictures’ inspired by the description of the Last Judgement in the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelations. In The Great Day of His Wrath, Martin’s apocalyptic vision closely follows the Biblical account: “…there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood. And the Heaven departed as a scroll…and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” The Earth crashes in on itself, underlining the futility of mankind’s attempts to resist the will of God.         

I must have a thing for apocalyptic or depressing images. Gheh, one of the few remnants of my dark puberty days (ooooh…in joke!). The other two paintings by John Martin are “The Last Judgement” (1853) and “The Plains of Heaven” (1851-1853). As I said before with the National Gallery: should you ever go to London, go to Tate Britain. The lighting on the paintings is at times very bad (TL-lighting, c’mon, really?) but the paintings certainly make up for this tiny problem.       

Strange Steel Beam Art in Tate Britain

After having our fill of beautiful paintings, we took the boat service from Tate Britain to Tate Modern. It was about 4.30pm by that time, so we first went to the top floor of Tate Modern and had a cappuccino/smoothie in the restaurant there. Since it was already getting dark at that time, we had a beautiful view of the London skyline. We wandered through Tate Modern, but I can honestly say I wasn’t impressed at all. No doubt the exhibition about Pop-Art would’ve been great (Andy Warhol FTW) but we didn’t really feel like paying £12,50 for this. Having free entry in museums can spoil you too, apparently. But, like I said, I wasn’t impressed with Tate Modern. Sure, the building is amazingly impressive, but their collection is kind of….meh. I’ve never really been a fan of modern art, I always think any idiot can create most of the pieces displayed. So, needless to say, we were done with Tate Modern quite quickly.       

Tate Modern

We crossed the Millenium Bridge, and I half expected these black wisps of mist to appear and destroy the bridge whilst we were on it. Watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the cinema thrice does that to you, I guess. St. Paul’s Cathedral was beautifully lit, Jordi went crazy trying to snap a picture of the both of us with St. Paul’s in the background, but I knew my own camera is horrible at night. Can’t really expect a powerful flash considering the size of my photo camera.       

In true London Fashion, we took the Underground to Covent Garden. Nice tidbit of information about Covent Garden Tube Station: there are no escalators to the exit. You either take the elevators (translation: being stuffed in a metal box like sardines in a tin can, and being groped by complete strangers) or the spiral staircase that is 193 steps high. We braved the staircase and made it to the top, being only slightly winded. We wandered around Covent Garden for a bit, decided we were hungry and then proceeded to wander around for over half an hour deciding where we wanted to eat.       

The both of us are cursed when it comes to making dinner decisions, I’m sure of it. We eventually came across an Italian restaurant (again ) called Bella Italia, promoting a two course dinner for £9,95. Poor students + two course meal for decent price = win. Something must’ve gone wrong in the kitchen, for we had to wait way too long for our dinner. Because our dinner took longer than we thought it would, we couldn’t go to the cinema to watch the new Coen,  A Serious Man. Not that it mattered, really, for it was great to just sit and talk and catch up and everything. I had (subconsciously) missed that.       

After dinner we created our own mission of finding the Battersea Power Station, a now abandoned 1930s power station that was used as a set for The Dark Knight. Miraculously we found it, but again, I couldn’t take pictures. My camera really is crappy at night. So, having our fill of Battersea and basking in the glory of having found it in the first place, we discovered we were quite close to Victoria Coach Station, and Jordi’s hotel. I got my Sinterklaas goodies from his room, and Jordi was so kind to drop me off at the coach station. I got the last bus from London to Canterbury, at 11:30pm, and arrived in Canterbury at 1:15am, as scheduled. I dozed off a little bit in the bus, but truly sleeping was an impossibility. Can’t afford missing my stop, now, can I?       

Unfortunately, there was quite a downpour in Canterbury by the time I arrived there. The whole “streets are flooding” sort of downpour. Had there been a harsh wind I would’ve grabbed a cab, but there was no wind whatsoever, so I just whipped out my umbrella and prepared myself for the half-hour walk back to campus. (Hard)Rock playing on my iPod helped me get there in no time, even though my shoes were quite soaked. In the end I was in my bed at about 3:00am in the morning, and it pained me to set my alarm at 9:30am, since I had a lecture at 11am. I may not have gotten a lot of sleep, but it was all darn well worth it. London always is.  

Rochester and Chatham       

Rochester Cathedral, as seen from Rochester Castle

On Saturday 28 November I went to visit Rochester and Chatham with Barbara (Belgium) and Kévin (France). By train it would take us about 45 minutes to get there, Rochester and Chatham are two cities next to one another (kind of like Amsterdam and Amstelveen), so we caught a train from Canterbury West at about 11 o’clock. First thing we noticed after we arrived in Rochester: it was pretty darn cold. Having your city next to the river Medway, and thus having harsh winds creates that sort of atmosphere, I suppose. We decided to go visit Rochester Cathedral first, but not after getting some delicious (and, frankly, incredibly cheap) pastries to serve as our lunch.    

Rochester Cathedral is, like any church I’ve seen here in England, a beautiful piece of architecture, with stain glass windows and high arches and everything. Though, it has to be said, there are a lot more Anglo-Saxon decorations left, unlike for instance Canterbury Cathedral where all these decorations were removed and replaced by Gothic architecture. The sandstone was also beautiful to look at, not as dirty and gritty as other older churches. I think they recently cleaned it up. Or there aren’t that many cars driving past the Cathedral. Whichever it is.     

One of the many Stain Glass Window pictures...

We weren’t in the mood to pay £3,- for an audio tour, so we made our way around the church with just the little leaflet and the plaques scattered throughout the church. The stain glass windows were wonderful to look at, and the sun was hitting them at just the right angle (yes, a sunny day in England, can you imagine?) so I dragged out the Japanese tourist in myself and took loads of pictures of that. Apparently the church was also a place where a lot of pilgrims gathered, so the ‘pilgrim steps’ were incredibly worn out. Seeing those steps (they were covered by a new wooden staircase) was quite impressive, since you suddenly realize how old this building really is, and how many people were here before you. Humbling, in a way.     

Pilgrim Steps @ Rochester Cathedral

Having our fill of the Cathedral and the Cloister Garden, we set out to visit Rochester Castle, just across from the Cathedral. Later in the afternoon they were organizing a ‘Santa Fun Run’, for charity, so we saw a lot of people dressed up in ill-fitting santa suits that day. Entrance to the Castle was £3,50, and we could climb all the way to the top of the ruin. The view from this Castle was magnificent, since it was once a stronghold on a very strategic spot next to the river Medway. We could see all the way ’round the area, so again, Japanese Tourist Marin was very happy. We had a lot of fun on the Castle, taking random pictures and even asking an Australian tourist (his accent sounded Australian, anyhow) to take one of the three of us, the ruined castle walls as our background.     

I guess the funniest thing of exploring the ruins of Rochester Castle was realizing that both Kévin and Barbara are slightly afraid of heights. Not a good thing when at the top of the Castle, there a big plaque exclaiming “DANGER KEEP OFF – NETTING IS USED AS A PIGEON DETERRENT ONLY. UNSAFE FOR HUMANS. 100 ft. DROP BENEATH.” Seeing the panic in someone’s eyes at that moment is quite hilarious, in a sadistic sort of way. Hey, I never claimed to be a saint now, did I?     

View on the river Medway as seen from Rochester Castle

Being close to freezing at that point, we decided to leave the castle, and wandered around the Castle grounds for a bit, eating lunch and deciding what to do next. We decided to catch a bus to the Chatham Dockyards, so that we could visit Dickens World. There was some confusion at first on whether or not we got the right bus, but we arrived near Dickens World just like we should have, and spent the last remnants of our afternoon there.      

Though it is advertised as some sort of children’s theme park, it is anything but. The buildings are beautifully crafted, and you get a bit of a feel of what it might’ve been like to live in the books of Charles Dickens, but most of the references will be completely lost on children. If you haven’t any inkling of who Dickens is or if you’ve never read any of his works, don’t bother going to Dickens World. We did everything we could do there, had a boat ride through the story of Great Expectations, saw the Haunted House for all of Dickens’ Ghosts, saw an animatronics Show portraying how some of Dickens’ characters were based on real life people, and had a 4D cinema experience of Dickens’ life and times.       

Dickens World closed at 5.30pm, but everything was pretty much dead at 5.15pm, so we took our leave. We caught a bus back to Chatham, wandered around for a bit deciding where we would have our dinner, and opted for the safe choice of an Italian restaurant, called “Simply Italian”. I had a lovely Lasagna there (a proper one, not the thing topped with waaaaaaay too much Bechamel sauce they serve at Rutherford Dining Hall) and an even better desert, Crème Brûlée. It had been ages since I had one of those, so I was really happy. The fun of cracking the caramelized layer on top of the egg cream never dies.        

At about 8-ish, we went back to the train station, only to discover that the train we had to take back was already at the station. We rushed to catch it (thank you conductor man for opening the door for us!) and thought we were in the right segment of the train, the one that would go back to Canterbury and not Ramsgate. At the station where they would change, however, we discovered that the front four carriages would go to Dover Priory (stopping at Canterbury West) and not the back four carriages, as said on the station. We rushed to catch the right train, and managed to get in just in time.       

Back in Canterbury, we traveled back to campus and played some silly games in my room. Or did we watch a film? Yes, I think we watched The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987), since neither Barbara nor Kévin had ever seen it. That grave error has now been corrected.       

—       

Well, so far my two trips. One more ‘Way Late Update’ coming up, for the Sinterklaas party, and updates about my academic stuff will come up soon as well. Updating this blog is as good a way as any to have some time away from writing my essays.       

Love you heaps, and as always: feel free to comment!       

xx
‘Mix   

 

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