Barnett Vicarious Adventures: May 22 and 23–Art Museum and Camden Town Market and Canal

I know my niece with her Masters Degree in Art History and our dear friend Christina who is working on her PhD in Art History are going to hate this, but we went to the famous Tate Modern Art Museum in London. I am sorry, but I just don’t get it. I love art, but not when you have to try to figure out what you are seeing. And, what is it with a room filled with what looks like piles of giant dog pooh and a giant termite mound? We gave it a try, but soon left. We stopped into a watercolor museum next door and thoroughly enjoyed it. We also loved our visit earlier to the National Gallery. Sorry, girls, but I would rather see the Monet’s at the National Gallery.

Below is the Bankside Art Museum adjacent to the Tate Modern that has the watercolor exhibits.

School boys on bus wearing suit, white shirt and tie!!

We finally discovered what is the funkiest most interesting place in London. It is called Camden Town and is named after the Camden Locks on one of the canals off the Thames River. It is loaded with interesting shops, street food and pubs. Much like Greenwich Village and Soho were in New York many years ago. We spent all afternoon wondering around the markets and watching the canal boats go through the locks. We intended to take a canal boat ride back to the area of Little Venice near our apartment, but we missed the last boat. Many of the buildings have giant adornments on the front. See below.

A Goth shop. Here you can get your attire for your evening on the dark side.

Get your tattoo or body piercing at Dark Angel or adjacent is an Oriental specialty shop. In the Oriental shop you can find everything from martial arts supplies to incense.

Shoes attached to the front of a shoe stores.

The streets were crowded with people even at midafternoon on a Thursday.

Above, the Camden Lock operations building and below canal boats going through the locks. The locks are still manually operated. The lock is closed on the right side and a boat has just entered the lock on the left side. The other picture are the passenger canal boats on which we missed our ride.

Below are the funky seats in the food stall area. There are open air food stalls serving almost any cuisine imaginable. I had Mexican food prepared by a young man from Guadalajara, Mexico who was going to college in London. Great street vendor tacos. Elaine opted for the Thai food. You then take your food and sit on one of the stools below which are the back portion of old motor scooters. They face the canal so you can eat and watch the boats go buy.

A random lion sculpture originally intended to be inside one of the buildings in the area. It turned out to be too large and too heavy when it was delivered so rather than waste it, they just installed it in the food stall area. It is a giant bronze lion easily as big as the bull outside the New York Stock Exchange.

Below, Edward enjoying his street vendor tacos and complaining about not having any Dos XX, Tacate, or Corona much less his favorite, Negra Modelo.

Below, did I say an little bit of every imaginable cuisine? How about these two guys from New Zealand who have set up a Texas BBQ and ribs stand. Looked pretty authentic.