Today was all about getting encultured.

I took a tube over to Westminster and took some pics of Parliament and all that jazz. Then I crossed over the bridge and wandered along for a few miles to the Tate Modern. The Tate was neat. The south bank walk was… bleh. It was pretty cold which made for great walking weather for me. Especially since I walked quite fast because there wasn’t much interesting going on.

The architecture doesn’t really excite me after things I have seen in Lyon, Munich, Berlin, and especially Entrecasteaux. The new buildings are safe, tame, uninteresting… they pale in comparison to some of the brilliant stuff you see in Munich and Berlin. The old buildings are not only safe and tame, but not really that old. Entrecasteaux is ancient ancient ancient. And so beautiful.

Finally, all of the stuff that approaches uniqueness is mobbed by tourists. I was forced to wear my Tevas today as I only packed one pair of socks, and those and my shoes got soaked in last night’s walk to Soho and back. I had to be very careful and aggressive to keep my feet protected amongst the crowds.

I got around quite a bit on the tube which was fun and relatively easy… not as easy as Berlin interestingly. Berlin is dead simple. But I also paid more attention to visual clues to get by. Here in London, it’s easier to pay a little less attention, then get surprised by slight differences in language, like “Way out” instead of exit. Makes perfect sense, but it is different and can cause minor disorientation. (The sign below says to me “Don’t do anything. Ever.”)

After the Tate Modern, I wandered over to the National Museum where I wandered for several more hours. They didn’t have the depth of Dutch artists that I enjoyed in Berlin, but they had a fantastically wide array of Big Brand Names.

All the walking pretty much put me out of commission for the rest of the day. I took a long slow walk back to my hotel, grabbed some dinner, and chilled out for the rest of the evening.