Today, we did what Lily wanted to do, and what she wanted to do was go check out some shops and go to the Tate Modern. We finished off the day with a wonderful meal with Josh and Beckie.
The first stop of the day was Minalima, the shop of the design duo Mina and Lima who are well known for designing most of the media that lives in the background and foreground of the Harry Potter movies. This includes things like posters, letters, packaging, even things like wall paper for rooms and other things that kind of fade into the background but would stick out like a sore thumb if they sucked. And naturally, being the design geek that she is, Lily is all about little detailed things like these.
We continued on to Covent Garden, a kind of fancy shopping area with a rows of shops flanking a central courtyard area. We went inside a couple of shops and ended up buying some chocolate to share with friends upon our return to the States.
But the best part of the place turned out to be a busking string quintet out in one of the courtyards. This group had an intense energy that exploded into the surroundings through the music they played, a repertoire that ranged from smooth classics like Pachabel’s Canon to the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean. For some of the most uptempo and upbeat pieces like the aforementioned Pirates of the Caribbean theme song or William Tell’s Overture, the musicians put some physicality into their performance, circling the cellist or doing kicks all while playing their instruments. I was very impressed. I decided to chip in a few bucks and bought one of their CDs.
We stopped by another arts and crafts store, this one known for its selection of craft papers.
Next stop was the Tate Modern, a modern art museum. I didn’t realize it until we arrived, but this was another one of those old power stations that got converted into something else upon decommissioning. I didn’t realize that the British were such pros at this, haha.
We bought a ticket to a light art exhibit, which was easily the highlight (ha!) of the trip. Projectors were set up in a dark room filled with smoke from smoke machines, and line art was beamed to transparent screens and mirrors, allowing visitors to interact with the light. I took a lot of cool pictures here, and really enjoyed simply looking at the light “cutting” through the air and watching other people interact with the light beams.
We continued on through the rest of the museum, checking out as many exhibits on the upper flow as we could until closing time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to check out the gift shop as a result.
We returned to the AirBnB to freshen up before heading over to Josh and Beckie’s place for dinner.
Josh made a wonderful Jewish meatball and veggie dinner over rice, and we had his father’s apple crumble (that I saw his father making days ago when we stopped by with the poster board) for desert.
It was a very nice time, extremely enjoyable yet a little bit bittersweet in that eventually we’d have to say goodbye. That’s the trouble with having good friends that are far away, isn’t it? Especially now that we’re all older and impulse trips aren’t really a thing we can do any more thanks to all of these other commitments and responsibilities, so you’re aware that it may be years before you see someone again.
At least this was a happy trip for a happy purpose. We said our goodbyes to the newly married couple and left for our AirBnB to pack our suit cases for the next leg of her trip: our own honeymoon in Greece.