London: Dec 30 (Museums, Dickens, Westminster)

Friday morning, we had a more leisurely breakfast and checked out of our hostel. Amazingly, they let us leave our large bags there until the evening, so that we didn’t have to lug everything around. J Although we both wanted to go inside the Tower of London, it was a bit expensive, far from our hostel, and most likely had a formidable line. ;-) So we decided to explore some less-known sights.

Our first stop was the Royal College of Music. The College owns a collection of instruments which they open up to the public through a small museum. However, despite looking up their hours online, they weren’t open! A small, helpful sign indicated that the real entrance was on the east side, but no amount of doorbell ringing brought anyone out.

M and the Royal College of Music.

Next stop: Hunterian museum. Zoology and medicine. (Our tour book indicated that it was less frequently visited, so we were pretty keen to check it out. J) We took the Tube and walked through some lovely streets, but guess what? It was also closed!!!

We decided that we’d give the Charles Dickens museum a shot before heading to Trafalgar Square. It was just a station away… And here, finally, we had some luck. Not only was it open, but it wasn’t busy!! The house in which Charles Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839 was turned into a museum and opened in 1925. Two of his daughters were born there and he wrote both Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby during the two-year period. Many of Dickens’ household items have been preserved and are on display in the various rooms, much in the same way that Dickens might have arranged them. We saw a short video of his life, and then got to look at original manuscripts, portraits, and his writing desk in his study, overlooking the back garden. Besides being able to read snippets of his books in his own hand, one of the best parts was looking out the back windows at the old chimneys and gardens and imagining what it would have been like living here over 150 years ago…

Front of the Dickens Museum.

Original manuscript.

Garden behind the house.

C and a map of London.

Chimneys behind the Dickens' Museum.

At about 2pm, we were pretty hungry, so we headed back to St. Martin’s for another meal in the Crypt Café (can you tell that we really liked it there? ;-). It was close to Westminster Abbey, because we planned on attending Evensong there at 5pm. It’s a service where much of the text is sung, usually by the boys’ choir, though today an adult choir was substituting. We were ushered right to the back of the church, usually reserved for dignitaries. The music was so beautiful!!! It was interesting to attend an Anglican service, since there are some modifications to the prayers. I would pick up on one that I knew, reciting without the help of the paper, but then get discombobulated when the words changed slightly. ;-) I really enjoyed it. However, at the end, we were ushered out of the abbey pretty quickly. They had to shut the abbey at 6pm SHARP, apparently. We have to close, move towards the doors… (C, did they say please?) We were a bit annoyed with such an abrupt dismissal. If you’re there for a service, shouldn’t you be able to have time to reflect? But I guess they don’t want people attending for the sole purpose of sight-seeing, and if you want to see the whole abbey, you should pay for a tour…sigh. But we did see Isaac Newton’s tomb on the way out…:-D

Food in the Crypt Cafe.

Night shot, Westminster (wish I had a tripod!)

Westminster Abbey.

Back to St. Martins for – guess what? Brass rubbings!!! You could take an embossed brass tablet from the wall, cover it with paper, and use a crayon to rub the pattern on to your paper…just like colouring in kindergarten!! C and I had so much fun. We got a whole end of a table to ourselves. Probably looked pretty funny – two university students intensely concentrating on their medieval crayon drawings. It was a great way to relax a bit from the crowded Underground and the busyness of getting from one place to another.

C starting on one of his brass rubbings.

My finished product.

M working on Celtic knotwork. :-)

Our last stop was the Victoria and Albert Museum. We went in with about 2 hours to see some exhibits, which meant that we just focused on a couple rooms. We saw some very ornamented armour, lots of statues, medieval stained glass panes, popes’ robes from the 1400s…a really fascinating collection of things. Some exhibits allowed you to guess how certain object were intended to be used, which was pretty interesting when we compared our guesses with their real purposes. Our feet were pretty sore, so towards the end we found a drawing station for kids. The exercise was to learn how to draw profiles with some Roman artwork, but I drew C’s profile instead. C, you are now immortalized in the V & A...at least until they get rid of that sketchbook. ;-) 

Knife with music notes engraved!
(May have been used for cutting bread while the family sang songs of thanksgiving.) 

Quick sketch of C.