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Holy crap! I didn’t wake up until 10AM! That’s a full 12 hours of sleep YO! The last time I managed that I believe I may have been taking vicodin to cut the pain of getting my wisdom teeth pulled. So I would claim that it doesn’t count. And this time I only had 2 beers, did I mention that it’s super expensive to do anything here?

Today I decided to head over to the National Gallery to see the Rembrandt exhibit. I stepped into the The National Portrait Gallery first pretty much by accident, which I wasn’t too moved with what was mostly portaits of old English dudes. All of which I’m sure are really important figures in history, but not being a British history buff, it’s much like looking at portraits of my neighbors family tree. Not that interesting.

Then I stumbled upon the Princes Diane Exhibit. It’s very interesting to see how more relaxed and natural the photos were after their divorce. I guess they were trying to give her a better public image, which they obviously did. It’s really sad she died at such a young age.

Okay this is super strange, I’m writing this in the hostel and there is a couple down stairs in the computer area chanting and doing some weird hippy crap! You just don’t get this slice of life outside hostel living. Well maybe in Golden Gate Park, some of the other people are leaving the room. Too funny…

Anyway… Next was the National Gallery. Again trying to keep to my 1.5 hour museum limit I picked up a map and went to only the pieces I thought would have been interesting. Of course the Rembrandt Exhibit was first, then to Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Van Gogh. Now we’ve seen a ton of this stuff in books, but seeing the actual work is pretty neat. What really sets you back is some of these paintings are close to being 800 years old. I’m not kidding. The quality of these are truly amazing.

Okay now I know nothing about art. But I can tell when I like something. Actually I have heard someone a week back utter the words, “You know, I think Van Gogh was a phony”. Now I may not go that far, but I sort of agree with her that his work “Sunflowers” doesn’t seem to stand up to the likes of “Searport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula”, by Claude. I believe I spent over 15 minutes alone trying to absorb the whole work.  See update:

After the Gallery I did some more wandering and happened upon the House of Guards, where they have some of the nicest looking horses doing miserable work. I don’t think the guard is very happy either, but they chose this gig. I’m guessing if you are late to work you get stuck out on the sidewalk like this as a punishment.

I stopped in St James Park to cop a squat and to listen to an hour of some local symphonic orchestra playing a free show. Good stuff, brings back wonderful memories of playing in my High School Band.

Tonight I decided to do dinner right, and stopped into an Italian Restaurant in South Kingston. Started it off with marinated olives and a glass of the house red. For the main course, Tagliatelle di Ragu Bolognese and another glass of the house red. The pasta was excelent, which is too bad because I didn’t save enough room for a piece of tarimsu. Anyway, all of that for only 16.80lbs. Nice huh? Yeah unless of course if you convert that to US dollars which is ~$40. But, I gave up on that about 3 days ago, and now everything feels cheap to me.

Update: I got the wrong guy, “Van Gogh is in now way a phony” it was “Picasso is a fake“. With that said, I still think Claude has some sick stuff…