The tour guide who let us up to see the model was about 90 years old and his name was Morris. He was a really nice and funny old guy; we all wished he had given us a tour! After our class walked around the in and outside of the cathedral, we were given an hour lunch break. We spent most of it in the 3 galleries of the church. Now, this is what made St Paul's my favorite building in London- no only was it a beautiful building to look at, it also had great views of the city! The first gallery let you look down into the church itself. You climb 259 stairs to get to basically an observation balcony, which stretched all around the inside of the base of the dome, at about ceiling height. The next gallery was another 378 steps up, and this one was outside. But the next gallery was the best because it was even higher up and the views were that much more amazing! To get there, we had to march up these narrow spiral staircases (to each level) and they got more narrow and daunting with each level! The payoff, however, was definitely worth it. I think I took pictures from every angle!
Here you can see the London Eye...
We had to book it back down the ~1000 stairs to meet our class at the next part of the field trip,
and we were about 10 minutes late. Good thing our professor was also late... he was so late, in fact that after waiting around for him for a half hour, we all just said our goodbyes, and Julia and I were off to the Tate Modern! We crossed the river over the Millennium Bridge, this funky pedestrian bridge, which was handily enough, from St Paul's right to the Tate Modern (which is a museum of modern art). The museum has 7 floors, but essentially the art is only on 3. We decided to start at the top and work our way down. Julia kept getting yelled at, first for touching some "art" (I asked her if she thought it was chalk on the wall so she touched it (it was chalk)) and then for taking pictures (I took a picture and my camera flashed; Julia wanted to take my picture with the same painting so she took my camera, but some staff guy came over and told her "no photos, no photos!"). This is also the museum with the giant slides- which I actually had a dream about last night! The slides are another piece of "art" (some lady is actually suing the museum because a slide hurt her wrist!) Modern art is not for me- example 1) there was a framed, blank canvas with a slash thru it. Yep, that's it 2) there was a film of a 10yr old girl reading aloud a book about color. Yep, that's it for that one too! 3) There was a room with scribbled on paper on the walls and a little bit on the floor and ceiling. Only 5 people at a time were allowed into this one. How is that art?!
After a few hours in the Tate, we decided to call it quits. Here is Julia and I in a mirrored room- it was made by automatic sliding doors. We spent about 5 minutes in this room, waiting for people to stop walking thru so we could take some pictures.
A stellar shot from our impromptu photo shoot in this garden of a church on our way to the Tate
