Canada Day in London

On Monday I had been scheduled to work for Nina (who is American), but she told me to take the day off and go to London for Canada Day if I wanted. There's no formal record-keeping of my hours (although I keep track myself), but both she and Dr. Scott know that between them I'm working more than full time, with hours that are often spread out over six days per week (because staffing field studies counts as work, even though it feels strange to call it that!). 

So, I went to London for the day :)

My first visit was to the Queen's Gallery, located in a side building next to Buckingham Palace. It has no permanent exhibits, but hosts various temporary ones: right now, the exhibit on show is "In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion". It's mostly portraits, with some clothing-related artifacts as well. Photography was only allowed for the paintings, not the artifacts, but there were things like lace and jewels and gloves and clothing-related royal records. 

The exhibit was arranged chronologically, with big
panels highlighting specifics of the fashions for
each time period.

I recognized this one from somewhere, although I don't know where; the only
art history class I've taken didn't cover even close to this time period.
The painting is of Charles I (from different angles) by Anthony van Dyck,
1635-1636.

One of the subsections of the exhibit was "Dressing Children".

The woman in the painting is wearing gloves, but according to the info
panel, her hands were fully painted and then gloves were painted
on top, like someone changed their mind. I'm fascinated that it's
possible to find out information like this without damaging
the painting!

Awesome free audio guide on an iPhone-like device.

The learning/interactive room

After the Queen's Gallery, I walked past Big Ben and Parliament, across the river to the Florence Nightingale Museum, which adjoins St Thomas Hospital.

Churchill statue outside Westminster Abbey

Riverside statue of Boudicca leading her revolt against
the Romans after they killed her husband, who was the leader of a Briton tribe

View from the garden outside St Thomas Hospital 

The Florence Nightingale Museum is located in one large room, so I thought they did a good job of segmenting the space in an interesting way, which helped direct my visit so that I knew how it was organized instead of wandering one large room/exhibit aimlessly. It's separated into three sections: her early life, her work during the Crimean War, and her life after the war (she lived to be quite elderly).

The outside of the "Early Life" section, with peepholes in the grass
showing different past and present medical scenes 

Standing at the intersection of the three different themed areas

The post-Crimean War area, focusing on the wealth of letters, pamphlets
and books Florence wrote on medical/nursing best practice issues,
including campaigning for better sanitation in India.

The Crimean War section.

The above photo is of a neat interactive screen in the Crimean War section, where you can read about the nurses she brought with her to the Crimea and see her entries about them in her records. The records list their references, age, place of origin, and location where they gained prior nursing experience. Of the nurses she brought with her, only 17 were there for the duration of the war; the rest were dismissed for bad character or quit, except for the 11 who died of disease.

Florence's lamp which she carried during her rounds: she walked
several miles of hospital corridors every night, earning the name
"Lady with the Lamp" which is still her famous nickname today

After the Florence Nightingale Museum, I walked over to Waterloo station to catch the tube to the Bank of England. Along the way I passed the London Eye again:

No photos were allowed inside the Bank of England Museum, unfortunately. It gave an exhaustive overview of the bank's history, with emphasis on its control of or impact on (or lack thereof, depending on the time period) the English economy. I liked learning about the different types of money the bank has issued, evolutions in security features, seeing a 1-million-pound note, and getting to hold a solid gold bar, but I found some of the statistics and info about inflation a bit over my head. 

The Canada Day celebrations in London are centred on Trafalgar Square, so I walked there next. 

I took this from the portico of the National Gallery, but had to leave soon
after when the Gallery closed.

I ended up choosing a spot safely out of the craziness, on the steps of St Martin-in-the-fields church (seen below from the National Gallery). 

While I was at the church I took a few minutes to explore their crypt again. Below is just a small gallery of memorial/marker stones, but the main part of their crypt is now a famous cafe, with grave markers making up a large portion of the floor!

View of the stage from my vantage point on the church steps

CCTV is everywhere in London...

There were so many red and white balloons around that some escaped every few minutes. I kept my camera out and was trying to be quick enough to get photos of them, but was largely unsuccessful!

After the concert I couldn't resist visiting Waterstones (the British verstion of Chapters, basically) and found this great sign. A little Monty Python makes any day better.

On my walk back to the train station, I passed a statue of Nelson Mandela across from Westminster Abbey and Parliament. It was covered in flowers and candles due to Mandela's current critical medical state.