Today

Today was wonderful, well, sort of, anyway.

And I've found my new favorite place.

It started out with me being late to my counselor's appointment to finalize my classes (although that wasn't the wonderful part. P.S. if you're taking the tube, plan for extra time, and don't oversleep). After my visit to my counselor, I wandered a bit, in search of headphones (which I still can't find, and I've left my pair at home).

And then I went to Tate Britain. We had a guided tour, which, while interesting wasn't really worth the time (the guide wasn't very knowledgeable, and didn't tell us anything we couldn't have learned from reading the placards).

The museum is free to enter (they request a donation, but they'll let you in), and it's well worth your time. It's actually one of my favorite art museums (although as far as art museums go, I haven't actually been to that many).

I'm not sure why I love art museums so much, but I guess it's just that I love story-telling, and I think that a painting is yet another way of telling a story. There aren't particularly very many famous masterpieces there, but the paintings are beautiful, many of them with a mythological focus (those are my favorites), and many interesting portraits, beginning with the Elizabethan and ending with the modern day. I stayed there until they kicked me out (they close at around 5:30), wandering the galleries on my own, furtively hiding my cup of coffee under my jacket (they don't let you bring food or drink into galleries), and letting the paintings absorb me. I will be back again, I know. That sort of calm isn't the sort of thing you allow to escape you easily.

By the time I left it was quite dark outside. The Thames rushed on its way in front of the Tate, and I decided to walk along it for a while (especially seeing as I had no idea where the nearest tube stop was). I had no idea where I was going, and I really didn't care. Strolling casually along the path (which probably identified me as a tourist, seeing as everyone else was rushing by on their way home), I watched the vulgar, glaring flourescent lights of buildings that must be quite ugly during the day reflected and softened, turned into a soft glow, like moonlight, on the darkened water.

With the buzz of cars, bicycles and buses crowding my ears on one side, the soft hush of the Thames on the other, I continued walking, past weathered buildings and highrises, around traffic circles, across London bridges (there are several of them, you know), thinking that this was really the London I wanted to see; the old with the new, the millenia-old Thames by my side, along with the motorcycle that almost ran me over (yeah, that happens to me A LOT).

I know I'm being cheesy here, and that this sounds cliche, but I really enjoyed walking tonight, at least until I got cold (about 40 minutes later) and discovered an urgent need to use the loo. While my walk-straight-till-you-find-a-tube-stop strategy didn't quite work, I wandered away past Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, including Big Ben (which is the bell, for those of you who don't know, not the tower or the clock), and found my way to the Westminster Underground.

For my part, I've discovered here that getting lost isn't such a bad thing, but that perhaps you should use the toilet before doing so.