Westminster Abbey
Today David, Josina, Ketlen and I just decided to hop a bus and go to London for the day. London! It takes on a whole new aspect to me, now that it's the local "big city." It's shed that surreal veneer; when I first visited, I felt as though I were looking out of a postcard. It is real now.
Today we did the tourist thing, spent two hours exploring Westminster Abbey. Stones, thrones, bones, poets, princes and priests. My favorite spot was Poets Corner, where we sought out grave markers and memorial stones to our favorite poets - Chaucer (who, unlike most, has an actual tomb); Auden; Milton; Marvell; Dryden; Tennyson. William Blake had a frightening bust with a massive forhead and glaring eyes. Elizabeth I
and her sister, Mary I ("Bloody Mary") are laid in the same tomb; William of Orange and Mary II just have stones in the floor; Henry VII has a spectacular chapel that he naturally built for himself. Down one of the many stone paths lies a museum with wood and wax effegies of many past kings and queens, made from death masks for verisimilitude.David in Trafalgar Square
We wandered up to Trafalgar Square - somehow I always end up there - and spent another hour at the National Gallery, and some time in front of the Botticelli "Venus and Mars" and Leonardo's "Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist." I saw many, many crucified Christs.Lord Nelson's memorial is under construction, so the already unfortunate "dude on a stick" looks more uncomfortable than usual. We then drifted through St. James Park, down to Buckingham Palace, through Hyde Park, and caught the bus home, so I could continue to work on my paper on astrology in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I'll let you know when I've solved the problem of free will with regards to predestination. It's taking some thought...
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