Tate Modern

Firsts on Sunday
First solo trip into London
First bus ride in England (on the top deck)
First trip to the Tate Modern
First .99 Flake Ice Cream Cone
First time I helped someone with directions on the bus.
First time I ever met someone who worked in the circus.

I’m not going to be feeling like myself until H & A come and join me. I miss them so. After working and moving on Saturday, I wanted to spend Sunday doing something new and something that would take all day so I wouldn’t miss them too much. I had decided to go into London to go to the Tate Modern Art Museum because I knew that would not be high on their list of attractions.

I had a lovely breakfast with my hostess, L and her six year-old son, B, who was anxious to meet the new guest. It turns out he had never heard an American accent before so he stared at me quite a bit. L seems like a great lady, but I might be biased after she told me I looked too young to have a 12 year old. I asked her how she had become a professional clown and she gave me a little history, including working as a professional actress and joining the circus to get performance experience in order to get her equity card which I gather is like a Screen Actor’s Guild card in the States. She showed me some pictures and said that she has performed as a clown all over England including at one of Tom Cruise’s parties. Wow! After a nice breakfast, I was off to catch the Tube into London, but to my surprise, the train was down because of some repairs so I had to take a bus to another Tube station, and then into London. I rode on the top deck of the double decker bus so the drive was beautiful. I didn’t mind at all.

As I got into London I got a little lost. That’s when I really started to miss H. When we were here in June, I would just say let’s go here, and he would figure it all out. I was suddenly wishing I would have paid attention! But the Tate in the end is pretty easy to find because it is right on the Thames River.

The Tate Modern had a special Salvador Dali exhibit that I went to, which was really interesting. I don’t like all of his work but his talent is obvious. Unlike some of the other stuff at the Tate that makes you wonder, what exactly is art? If I hang a piece of cloth on the wall, does that make it art? Even if modern art isn’t your cup of tea, the building is something to see. Not attractive from the outside, but very interesting inside.

As I trudged back to the B&B at about 7:30pm the wind was threatening to tear my umbrella apart. It was 60 degrees but because my clothes were soaked it felt much colder. My first instinct when I got into some dry clothes was to turn the kettle on.