Still sick; more on England
Oct. 20th, 2006 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callistotoniI am sick of being sick. I had wanted to ride today, but maybe I'll just turn Brandee out. Today will be the first time I've seen her since the trip. :-P
More thoughts on England:
Being that high up on the planet does effect the glare. At home, I always have to wear my dark glasses outside. In England I didn't have to because glare just wasn't a problem. Surprised me.
Hastings: Moriven posted a good write up on this already. I read a post on another list from Henrik and got some more info. There were 85 riders! Some of them were from Poland, which makes sense, given that all of the Saxons I could hear were German or Scandenavian or French. Some of the riders were very good -- it was a pleasure to watch one guy who played courier between William and the infantry and archery units. Most of the horses looked like warnbloods of some type, although I think there were two Gypsy Vanners and one Freisain, as well as some large ponies. The only downside was that we had to stand for about 3 hours, and we had to deal with a *huge* crowd.
According to Henrik, they don't do re-enactments this large every year. The last one on this scale was in 2000. If you are interested in doing this I'd talk to Henrik, although I suspect the best ones are on years when Oct 14 lands on a weekend day.
Funny Story, or Why You Never Want To Attend An English Soccer Match With Me: At one point the Norman Cavalry rode past where we were standing. Everyone in the crowd starts to boo (there being a heavy preference for the Saxons among the spectators). This booing struck me as *wrong* on 2 levels: 1) How *dare* they boo horses?, and 2) I'm thinking "People, you are as much Norman as you are Saxon at this point, so y'all really need to Get Over It! So I start cheering the cavalry as loud as I can. Everyone turns and stares at me and I stare back. Yup, between the crowd and the booing I had become the Ugly American by that point.
And as moriven said, Johanna and I picked up some fabu reproduction glassware. The vendors were great, but as expensive as you'd think hardcore European re-enactment stuff would be.
Hastings P.S. I really enjoyed this event. It particuarly pleased me to see period-consistant campsites. And, of course, I have a "thing" for Tolkien's Rohan, and this was as close as I could get to seeing Rohan riding in person. ;-) Given how un-militaristic I am in my hobbies I surprise myself with who much I like this sort of thing as a spectator.
Hampton Court: This was the place I most wanted to go this trip, and Johanna and Martin indulged me and let me stay until the place closed. As you probably know, only the front part and the kitchens survive from Tudor times, the rest (including the vast gardens) were done in the later 17th and 18th C. The kitchens were uber cool! Mostly I just wallowed in it all :-) . But Moriven was right, the female re-enactors were irritating, but the one guy that talked was entertaining. And I got to smooze with him and talk about who and how they do their costumes.
The museums in London got short shrift from us. Of our 4 nights in London, one whole day was in Hampton Court, and one whole day was taken up with Hastings. We had, therefore, only 1.5 days in London itself to see stuff. The day we arrived from York we had only a few hours to look at stuff, so we saw the Tudor and Elizabethan stuff in the Portrait Gallery, and then had about one hour to see the National Gallery. At the NG I fell in love with this dress:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/largeImage?workNumber=NG1023&collectionPublisherSection=work
When I go back (I'm already plotting) I want to spend a whole day just in the NG. It was so overwhelming: all the famous stuff is there, so I was continually gasping and thinking "OMG there (fill in the blank with famous painting) is!" Robert Campain, Van der Weyden, and The Portrait of the Arnolfini's (sp?)! (Aastg, I thought of you. When you guys go you need to go to the NG first. Bring kleenex.)
The first day in London was overwhelming. First we travel by train for about 2 hours from York, then we wind up on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride taxi-ing from Kings Cross Station to our hotel, then we do the world's fastest tour of the Portrait and National Galleries, and end the day seeing Spamalot (we got the last 3 tickets). If you're me, that qualifies as overwhelming.
The only full day we had in London was our last day, Sunday. So we went to see the Tower, saw the White Tower and the Crown Jewels, then went to the V&A. We really enjoyed the tour at the Tower, led by one of the Yeoman Warders (very fun guy with a great delivery!). I enjoyed the architecture and the armor, but thought the jewels were overrated.
We only got to see 2 parts of the V&A: The fashion section and a special exhibit called At Home in the Rennaissance. The fachion section was dissapointing. They were focusing on the 1960s (blah!), and I don't think they had all of thier stuff on exhibit. The Rennaissance exhibit was Fabu, though. I particuarly enjoyed the display of table settings from several different parts of Italy (Venice, Tusany, Bolonga (sp?) and some others I don't remember. Also got to see a Sofiniba Angusola (sp?) painting in person (the one with the kids playing chess) -- woo hoo! I bought the catalog, and will be showing that off to all of you. :-)
OK, that's probably enough for now. And just so you know, I still don't have a battery for my laptop, so I'll probably be offline this whole weekend.
More thoughts on England:
Being that high up on the planet does effect the glare. At home, I always have to wear my dark glasses outside. In England I didn't have to because glare just wasn't a problem. Surprised me.
Hastings: Moriven posted a good write up on this already. I read a post on another list from Henrik and got some more info. There were 85 riders! Some of them were from Poland, which makes sense, given that all of the Saxons I could hear were German or Scandenavian or French. Some of the riders were very good -- it was a pleasure to watch one guy who played courier between William and the infantry and archery units. Most of the horses looked like warnbloods of some type, although I think there were two Gypsy Vanners and one Freisain, as well as some large ponies. The only downside was that we had to stand for about 3 hours, and we had to deal with a *huge* crowd.
According to Henrik, they don't do re-enactments this large every year. The last one on this scale was in 2000. If you are interested in doing this I'd talk to Henrik, although I suspect the best ones are on years when Oct 14 lands on a weekend day.
Funny Story, or Why You Never Want To Attend An English Soccer Match With Me: At one point the Norman Cavalry rode past where we were standing. Everyone in the crowd starts to boo (there being a heavy preference for the Saxons among the spectators). This booing struck me as *wrong* on 2 levels: 1) How *dare* they boo horses?, and 2) I'm thinking "People, you are as much Norman as you are Saxon at this point, so y'all really need to Get Over It! So I start cheering the cavalry as loud as I can. Everyone turns and stares at me and I stare back. Yup, between the crowd and the booing I had become the Ugly American by that point.
And as moriven said, Johanna and I picked up some fabu reproduction glassware. The vendors were great, but as expensive as you'd think hardcore European re-enactment stuff would be.
Hastings P.S. I really enjoyed this event. It particuarly pleased me to see period-consistant campsites. And, of course, I have a "thing" for Tolkien's Rohan, and this was as close as I could get to seeing Rohan riding in person. ;-) Given how un-militaristic I am in my hobbies I surprise myself with who much I like this sort of thing as a spectator.
Hampton Court: This was the place I most wanted to go this trip, and Johanna and Martin indulged me and let me stay until the place closed. As you probably know, only the front part and the kitchens survive from Tudor times, the rest (including the vast gardens) were done in the later 17th and 18th C. The kitchens were uber cool! Mostly I just wallowed in it all :-) . But Moriven was right, the female re-enactors were irritating, but the one guy that talked was entertaining. And I got to smooze with him and talk about who and how they do their costumes.
The museums in London got short shrift from us. Of our 4 nights in London, one whole day was in Hampton Court, and one whole day was taken up with Hastings. We had, therefore, only 1.5 days in London itself to see stuff. The day we arrived from York we had only a few hours to look at stuff, so we saw the Tudor and Elizabethan stuff in the Portrait Gallery, and then had about one hour to see the National Gallery. At the NG I fell in love with this dress:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/largeImage?workNumber=NG1023&collectionPublisherSection=work
When I go back (I'm already plotting) I want to spend a whole day just in the NG. It was so overwhelming: all the famous stuff is there, so I was continually gasping and thinking "OMG there (fill in the blank with famous painting) is!" Robert Campain, Van der Weyden, and The Portrait of the Arnolfini's (sp?)! (Aastg, I thought of you. When you guys go you need to go to the NG first. Bring kleenex.)
The first day in London was overwhelming. First we travel by train for about 2 hours from York, then we wind up on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride taxi-ing from Kings Cross Station to our hotel, then we do the world's fastest tour of the Portrait and National Galleries, and end the day seeing Spamalot (we got the last 3 tickets). If you're me, that qualifies as overwhelming.
The only full day we had in London was our last day, Sunday. So we went to see the Tower, saw the White Tower and the Crown Jewels, then went to the V&A. We really enjoyed the tour at the Tower, led by one of the Yeoman Warders (very fun guy with a great delivery!). I enjoyed the architecture and the armor, but thought the jewels were overrated.
We only got to see 2 parts of the V&A: The fashion section and a special exhibit called At Home in the Rennaissance. The fachion section was dissapointing. They were focusing on the 1960s (blah!), and I don't think they had all of thier stuff on exhibit. The Rennaissance exhibit was Fabu, though. I particuarly enjoyed the display of table settings from several different parts of Italy (Venice, Tusany, Bolonga (sp?) and some others I don't remember. Also got to see a Sofiniba Angusola (sp?) painting in person (the one with the kids playing chess) -- woo hoo! I bought the catalog, and will be showing that off to all of you. :-)
OK, that's probably enough for now. And just so you know, I still don't have a battery for my laptop, so I'll probably be offline this whole weekend.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 10:09 pm (UTC)Will you be at collegium tomorrow?
Did you want to stop by afterwards?
I have a great artbook from the NG BTW
no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 10:11 pm (UTC)The book I have has a good copy of the portrait.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 10:18 pm (UTC)JIMR
no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 11:38 am (UTC)I was just tickled to see the original of the "The Tailor" cause he's in *every* costuming book. Awesome!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 07:07 pm (UTC)Like I said, I want to go back (next year?) and spend a whole day at the NG. :-)
poozers
Date: 2006-10-22 04:24 pm (UTC)Re: poozers
Date: 2006-10-24 03:16 am (UTC)Re: poozers
Date: 2006-10-24 03:47 am (UTC)