I arrived in London on March 2nd at 6:30 am, having flown through the night. The key to not having horrible jet-lag for weeks is to just suffer through the day and go to sleep at a normal hour so I dropped my stuff off at my hotel and went out for the day in search of fun, cheap things to do. The Saatchi Gallery was just a ten minute walk away so I headed there first.
Admission is free and it is known for having some really great contemporary installations, two things that are right up my alley. Plus they allow photography!
These were a few of my favorites:
Record albums that were carefully erased leaving hair, mustaches and lips by artist Ajit Chauhan. Hysterical.
A portrait made of an assembly of rubber stamps by artist Reena Saini Kallat.
Emily Prince's incredibly moving installation of illustrations of every American service person that has lost his or her life in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was also totally loving the hoards of art students that made themselves at home for hours, sitting on the floor to sketch.
After that I stopped at Ladurée bakery in Harrods, bought myself a box of macarons (green apple! salted caramel! raspberry so fresh it has seeds in it!) and then headed over to Hyde Park to take a walk. It was a beautiful sunny day and it seemed like all of London had the same idea: the park was packed! I had a few macarons while sitting at the Princess Diana Memorial fountain which was surprisingly beautiful and spent a few hours just kind of spacing out and trying to stay awake. I also fell in love with these old craggy trees, some sas crooked as the Tower of Pisa.
At around 6 pm, I started to admit defeat, got some Indian take-out and a mini-bottle of wine then went back to my room to watch some BBC. I was asleep an hour and a half later.
