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Monday 2 August 2010

30 July 2010

The Challenge

Before leaving Cape Town I was set a challenge of finding Little Ben and the only clue I was given was that it was near one of the main train stations in London. This clue was not much help because I had never been to London before and therefore did not know the big stations. After being here for a few weeks I decided it was time to find Little Ben.

I had been to a few of the “main” stations before and not seen Little Ben. After deciding what I wanted to do on Saturday I chose the biggest station near these attractions and got off, sorry alighted at this particular station.

What was it that I decided to do? Well I hadn’t seen the Tate Britain or the Imperial War Museum and they are relatively close to each other and the nearest large station to them is Victoria Station.

Little Ben



So I alighted at Victoria Station and went up to road level and turned right and then I saw Little Ben. As you can see it is black which is slightly disappointing if you are going to make a model of something at least get the colour right. But I am glad I have found it and taken a picture of it.



Tate Britain


My first impression was that it was much smaller than I had expected and the names of the paintings are quite boring “Girl with White Dog” and “Wooded Landscape with a Peasant Resting”. The best part is you can spend less than two hours there and not feel like you have missed anything. The first thing you see when you walk in is a fighter jet hanging from the ceiling which is pretty weird seeing as most of the artwork is more than 100 years old. The paintings are brilliant although early Britons were an ugly bunch. The abstract art is crap, I mean how hard is it to paint a large piece of wood and cut a hole in the middle?





Imperial War Museum




I have always been fascinated by World War II, I don’t know why but it is the case. So for a person like me the Imperial War Museum is a brilliant place to go. The foyer of the museum is filled with planes from both WWI and WWII hanging from the roof as well as various other modes of transport like tanks, boats and even a one man submarine. Not only are the exhibits from the Allied forces but also from German forces. There are little rooms with different themed exhibits in them and the best one of them is the holocaust exhibit. It takes you from the beginning of anti-Semitism in Germany through to the concentration camps by using different displays. It really is a brilliant and moving exhibit. There is even a huge model of Auswich as well as artefacts from the camps.


Wondering around the Southbank

I decided just to wander around a bit and walked to the London Eye where the queue was huge. So walked along the Thames and to the National Theatre where they had this odd show going on outside where these two actresses thought it was funny to where a backpack and a tent. I really don’t get abstract art. Anyway after tiring rapidly I ventured home satisfied that I had seen some pretty cool stuff (as well as some random shit).

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