LDF-Staircase Fun with Vic and Al (not my most exciting post...)

V&A Signage from the Tunnels that take you to South Kensington Station (I read about this sign in the paper-it's brand new and apparently cost quite a bit of money to get the letters to work from both sides! Definitely the flashiest of the museum tunnel signs.)

Exhibit for London Design Festival- The stair is framed using off-cut pieces of picture frames

You could only walk up, not down (not sure why), so then I had to snake around the museum to find the exit as this was the only thing I came to see!

Today was a very very busy day! Dolan comes in tomorrow and then on Friday we leave for Spain! This being said, I had lots of errands I wanted to do, things I wanted to see (that I wouldn't subject Dolan to-like this staircase for exmaple), and things to buy just in case immigration doesn't deem me worthy of coming back into the country like they almost did when I came back from Italy. So I started out my day by going to see this exhibit at the V&A. It was pretty cool (to me), but I can see why others may not think too much of it.haha. From South Kensington, I went to Portobello Road. There were a few off hand boutiques I wanted to look at in case-one:when I get back in October all of the sales of their summer clothes are done (their summer clothes=all year wear for Houston) or two: I don't get to see them again! After making a few purchases, I headed to the other side of the city to Spitalfields Market. They say the stalls close at 4, but luckily as I got there at 3:45, most were still open and were willing to let me look around. I found a few bargain dresses (I once shunned market shopping thinking all the clothes were cheesy and cheap, and now I love it because they are cheap, and not all cheesy)!

From Spitalfields, I made my way back to Bob's in order to finish up laundry, pack for Spain, and get everything ready for Doaln in case he just wants to pass out when he gets here (although I think with his one 1/2 days in London, he will most likely want to pack in as much as possible!). Oh London, when the time comes, I'm going to really miss you. I feel like we are just now getting to know each other!

The Pope is like a Rockstar...oh and some shopping.

Columbia Road (near Old Street)

Ryantown-Rob Ryan's store on Columbia Street-what actually drew me to Columbia Street (I heard about it in a London blog)

Great vintage store where I found a beautiful neclace and handmade bag for good prices!

Somewhere near Old Street-maybe Curtain Rd.

Trafalgar Square-Outrace-London Design Festival Exhibit

Anti-Pope protest in Trafalgar Square

They marched down Whitehall towards Westminster Abbey where I think the Pope was giving mass.

So today has been a very interesting day. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Edinburgh earlier this week, went onto Glasgow, came down to Twickenham (near London), and finally ended up in Westminster Abbey to give a prayer vigil yesterday. Today his Pope-Mobile started at Westminster Cathedral for a mass and traveled down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park where he is currently conducting a prayer vigil in front of more than 80,000 people standing in Hyde Park. The Pope being in London is a big deal because one, it is a very secular country where religion is kept very separate from the state, and two, it is the first time the Queen has invited the Pope making this his first ever State Visit. Since England and the Catholic Church have fought for hundreds of years and had a bit of a falling out, it is again, quite a big deal. All this being said, the city has been a little bit of a mess for the past few days (Central London mainly). So today, instead of starting out in Central London, I headed back to Northeastern London to Old Street.

You might recall from a previous post that I visited Columbia Road which has a line of about 20 very unique boutique shops only open on weekends. Well actually, as it turns out, a lot are only open on Sundays I found out. Duped again! I still found some great places, but some other ones that I wanted to go in will have to be visited on a Sunday in the future.

From here I traveled to Bethnal Green where the London Design Festival was holding a "Pound Store" of designer made objects in an abandoned store on Roman Rd. Of course the tiny store was packed with lines out the door when I got there. I was a little dissapointed to find that the products weren't really even worth a pound, and yet people were grabbing handfuls of things. I think their marketing them for a pound made them seem more exciting then they really were. Strange broaches, paper, pencils, and the like that you could regularly pay 50p for (or no doubtedly live without), were being grabbed up by the masses.

From here, I decided to go to Trafalgar Square where they had another exhibit from London Design Festival-Outrace-in which robot arms were set up. I'm not exactly sure who was controlling them or what they do, but it was interesting. I was secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pope (or really I wanted to see his Pope-Mobile as I've seen him a few times in Rome), but I instead got caught in an anti-Pope march which went though Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall, and towards Westminster Abbey where I think the Pope was holding mass. Now I might have been brought up Catholic, but I'm also pretty open and tolerant to other religions. However, I didn't agree with some of the signs people were holding or the hate in their eyes. Others seemd peaceful and in quite a good mood chatting with the hundreds of police walking along side the macrh. One woman had a bumper sticker (yes bumper sticker size) on her forehead that read "Religion is Stupid". Now in my opinion, someone who wears a bumper sticker on their forehead is stupid, but that's just my opinion. I kind of hope it tears off part of her eyeborws because she was actually dumb enough to have it covering them. Would a sign really not do? A lot of U.K. citizens were pretty upset that his visit is costing them 12 million pounds (yeah, I'd be a little upset too), but also that he is bringing religion to the forefront which is hardly ever done in their country. Also, all of the recent sex scandals in the Catholic church of course haven't really warmed people up. However, hundreds of thousands of people lined The Mall while his little converted Mercedes went down it at like 5 mph (snipers were postitioned on the roofs and helicopters hovered in the sky no doubt with snipers). The people ran along the Mall while he drove to Hyde Park and people were crying and holding up their children to be blessed as he passed. They all screamed and cheered along confirming yet again that the Pope is like a rockstar. It very much reminded me of when we were in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in Rome (on a school trip) and the Pope happened to show up for a quick mass, and people were climbing the hundred year old columns, sitting on other peoles shoulders, crying, screaming, and passing out. Crazy...

One Word: Gastrotypographicalassemblage (two other words:Wall Art and Graffitti)

Lou Dorfsman designexhibition at the Kemistry Gallery to start off the London Design Festival.

I was very dissapointed that they didn't actually have a portion of the wall there, but instead they had a half scale print out on the wall.

And now a tour of East London's graffitti and celebrated wall art (this is starting out at Old Street)! This is where a lot of Banksy's original pieces were done, however, they since been tagged over or removed.

I could have used a cup of tea...

Accidentally made my way to Spitalfields Market. It worked out quite nice though as Friday is fashion day, and I got a cheap dress and scarf! I also found a bench outside of the market to eat my absolutley delicious b.l.t. sandwich (real crispy bacon, not that uncooked crap they have on all the other British b.l.t.'s) and pickle. The best lunch I've had since I've been here.

Somewhere off of Brick Lane

This looks like a really mad pacman.

The pink car used to be park of a Banksy exhibit. Now the car is in a glass box.

Some ground art as well...

So I did not realize that Brick Lane was like Little India. Even all of the street signs were in Arabic and it reaked of curry smell!

see...(I entered Brick Lane from Hanbury Street, and I felt like if you turned right off of Hanbury, you ended up in India, and if you turned left, you got more into the artsy and somewhat risky part of Brick Lane).

A turn into the more artsy part...

This looks like something out of Mario Brothers to me...but more evil!

London Design Festival starts tomorrow and goes on for 9 days. They have a few exhibits that opened today though, and one of them is Gastrotypographicalassemblage-a Lou Dorfsman exhibit. Lou Dorfsman was a designer who spent 40 years at CBS designing their advertising and corporate identity. One of his greatest works was the 35 foot wide, 8 1/2 foot tall wooden hand cut typographic wall that spread the length of the canteen wall and spelled out words related to eating/food. It was completed in 1966. I was hoping they had part of the wall at the exhibit, but it's apparently undergoing a large restoration process after being in storage since the 1990's.

From the exhibit, I found a beacon of light to my hungry stomach-or more a bacon of light! A corner deli called "B.L.T. Deli". It was only about a 10x10 space, and the inside was so packed with people, that you had to queue up outside, then when you get in, they make you yell out your order so they can make as many at one time. I got the most delicious bacon sandwich that reminded me of one I would get at Central Market. Annnnnndd, I got a real pickle (not one of these sweet cucumbers parading as a pickle). It was amazing.

After a quick walk through Spitalfields market and the surrounding shops, I made my way to Brick Lane. I was under the impression it would be really arty with cool-off hand boutique shops. But it seemed more like just curry shops. I did find a few cool places going down the opposite way from the string of curry shops and mosques, but it wasn't as exciting as I had hoped. But it did have great graffitti and wall art. I tried to get back to Old Street at this point, and accidentally took the wrong way down Commercial Street getting to Aldgate East tube stop instead (it's not even on a real line that I could get to Old Street from). I finally made it back to Old Street tube stop and made my way back to Bob's. Definitely a great day for graffitti!