Day 3 – Can’t Touch This

Well todays adventure started with heading out into the adventurous city of London and walking to the London Underground. Today we had to go to another train stop because the one closest to our hotel was closed because of a mandatory power outage. Sadly, the only downside of walking to the other train stop was that it was raining with lots of wind behind it. This made me have to take out my umbrella and hope that it wouldn’t fly away. After we got into the train station, it was time to take it to the stop we needed so we could walk to the Wax Museum. After getting to our train station destination, we walked outside to see that it had started to ease up on the rain a little bit. When arriving at the Wax Museum we were greeted and climbed a big spiral staircase. When arriving to the correct floor, it was time to enter the museum. When entering, you could see that there were many famous wax figures with such celebrities as Kanye West, Morgan Freeman, and George Clooney. There were 2 doors in this area that connected to different rooms with wax figures. One room only had 3 figures, such as Charlie Chaplin while the other door was the starting point to where you would be able to find all of the other rooms available in the wax museum.

When going through the second door, there were multiple exhibits that caught my attention. These exhibits include Sports, Royals, Spirit of London Ride, Marvel Movie Experience, and Star Wars. Being able to to look through all of these exhibits really allowed myself to see many of the worlds famous people up close. The details that were on the many wax figures at the museum was remarkable and I was very impressed with the workmanship behind them. The the Marvel Movie Experience also caught my eye because it wasn’t until during the movie I realized that the movie was in 4D, which made my experience and happiness for this exhibit increase. After viewing the many wonderful exhibits at the Wax Museum, it was time to enjoy a little lunch break before heading over to the British Museum. During this break, myself and many others from the group decided to jump onto the London Underground so we could get ourselves to the British Museum. After finding our way through the London Underground, we were able to find the stop we needed to walk to the museum. While on the way we found this little shop that we were able to buy lunch from and found a little area to relax in to eat our lunch. After finishing our lunch, we continued out journey to the British Museum. Fast forward and we finally reached the British Museum. While looking at the museum from the outside, you can see how large the museum really is. I never would have imagined how large this museum would have been. When I first walked into the museum, after passing the Rosetta Stone, I was shocked in how large of an open area the corridor on the ground floor was. This was the first of many times walking through the British Museum that I was in shock.

While walking through the museum, it was fascinating to see all of the wonderful art that was being put on display. Surprisingly, I actually found some pieces that were shown in my Art History classes over the course of my career here at UMass Lowell. I found that surprising because I never would have thought I would be able to see those certain pieces with my own two eyes. From walking through Ancient Egypt to seeing all of the many pieces of Ancient Roman architecture, this museum had all of the most incredible pieces that I could of possibly imagined. After walking through most of the museum and trying to contain all of the wonderful artifacts that were being put on display, it was time to go the exhibit that brought the whole group to this museum in the first place; The American Dream pop to the present.

When I first stepped foot into this exhibit, I was instantly blown away with the amount of famous works that they had displayed on their wall. One of the pieces I was blown away to see on my first couple of steps into the exhibit was the F-111 by James Rosenquist. I learned about this painting in my Contemporary Art class the previous semester, and being able to see it up close and personal, rather than just from an image is remarkable and really makes me feel special and that I had made the right decision to come on this trip to see all of these fabulous pieces of art. There were many times throughout this exhibit that I experienced such as I did with the F-111 painting, and I couldn’t be happier. Being able to walk through the history of pop art culture in america is an incredible experience and the way that the museum put the exhibition together really blew my mind. Sadly though, the exhibition had a No Photography rule, so I wasn’t able to take any pictures of the many famous pieces of art that were displayed in this exhibit, but I will have the memories of walking though and experiencing all of the famous pieces of pap art first and and seeing them all with my own eyes. After leaving the exhibit and passing through the gift shop, it was time to hop back onto the London Underground train and head back to our hotel. It was good timing too since most of us were getting tired from walking all around the museum. Once we got back to the hotel, we all went our separate ways and called it a day. This day was one of those days where I was able to see and experience many famous artworks that I probably will not ever see again with my own eyes. This day has been such a great experience for me and a day at the museum that I truly will never forget for the rest of my life. I would rate today a 10/10, which would round the total score for this trip so far to a 30/30.