The Second Biggest Church in the World

Today turned into a much more interesting day than I thought it would be when I woke up. I went to Senior Sem and then, on a whim, decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a great idea.

In Senior Sem, we discussed a bunch of stuff pertaining to getting ready to leave London. Ready to leave?? We just got here!! But, alas, I only have a month left here. That is insane... and sad... and scary... and a million other things. Anyway, we talked about storage and knowing when and where your flight is and other stuff. Then we started talking about visual art. We looked at a painting (picture 1). Phil made four groups and each group represented one of four elements in the painting, positive space, negative space, edge, and line. We pretended each of those four elements was a state and the whole painting was a country. Each group came up with an idea of how our own state was doing. Like, my state was the black color (positive space) and we said that we were expanding our borders and proclaimed that the country would be much more at peace if we took over all of it. Some other groups proposed eliminating some elements and stuff like that. We didn't know the name of the painting when we were doing this. The painting is called "Elegy of the Spanish Civil War" so without knowing what the painting was about, we got a lot of the elements the artist was going for: genocide, anger, uneasy, battle, etc. It was a very cool way of doing it. I was impressed with the idea and surprised by how it all worked out.

After class, I came back and ate lunch and sat around for a little bit. I knew I couldn't do that all day so I decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral (picture 2) and go inside because I haven't done that yet. I was not allowed to take pictures inside it (that is SOOOOOO dumb, ugh) so you'll just have to trust me that it was astoundingly impressive. St. Paul's is the second biggest church in the world (after St. Peter's in Rome) and has the second tallest dome (same). This incarnation of the church was designed by Christopher Wren who did numerous other churches in The City (the neighborhood stretching from Temple to Tower Bridge). None of his other churches even comes anywhere close to matching the splendor and sheer size of this building. The church was built after the Great Fire of 1666 on the same place as the older St. Paul's. There has been a church on that spot since around 600. Wren had a much different idea for his church than the one that ended up being built. The people in charge were more conservative than him. I'd say he did a pretty good job anyway. The two bell towers in front were added later (but still by Wren) and were supposed to both have clocks but only one does now. They are topped by pineapples (yes, pineapples) that symbolized peace and prosperity (plus pineapple is delicious). The dome is topped by a ball and cross, just like the older churches.

I went in and the first thing you notice is the amazing nave (picture 3, from the internet). It is so tall and spectacular. The chandeliers in it were really cool, I never noticed anything like them in Rome or Florence. I walked under the dome next which was incredible. The inside of the dome has monochrome paintings of Bible stories. A very big contrast to the apocalyptic paintings on the inside of the Duomo in Florence. The Choir had wrought iron all around it which was amazing. Inside the Choir is the High Altar which had a canopy like the one in St. Peter's (but small and less extravagant). The High Altar was destroyed when a bomb or something crashed through the roof and on it during WWII. The ceiling above the Choir and the High Altar was mosaics. The mosaics were special because they were made using glass pieces that were set in at odd angles to make them sparkle. It was sooooo cool (picture 4, again from internet). I wanted to take a picture so bad. They were beautiful. Definitely my favorite part of the church.

From there, I started my ascent of the dome where I could take pictures. There were 450 or so steps. Brought me back to all the steps I climbed in Italy. Its interesting to compare the staircases. In the Campanile in Florence, the stairs were in a square pattern. The Duomo was a circular staircase. St. Paul's was in the shape of an oval. It is strange that they are all different. Anyway, the first stop is the Whispering Gallery which is on the inside of the dome, at the very base. It's called the Whispering Gallery because if you talk into the wall, you can hear it all the way around it. A very cool effect. There was a really good view down in the church and up at the inside of the dome. More stair climbing followed until I got to the Stone Gallery which is outside. It is located where the curved part of the dome meets the up and down part, if you know what I mean. The views were pretty awesome. There were stone columns that I had to take my pictures through but it was ok (picture 5). The views of the bell towers with the London Eye and River Thames were really cool (picture 6). There was also a good view across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern (picture 7). Then it was more stair climbing up to the top. The top is called the Golden Gallery and it is tiny. It is a very small circle that you can walk around. I happened to go up at the exact same time as two classes of French and German high schoolers. That was way over maximum capacity. We were all squished. I did manage to get my picture taken up there (picture 8). It was cloudy so the pictures weren't out of this world, but the views were still magnificent. I made my way down all those stairs and back into the church.

My next stop was the crypt. In the crypt, a lot of famous English people are buried including Lord Nelson, Duke of Wellington, Florence Nightingale, Lawrence of Arabia, T.M.W. Turner, Winston Churchill and Christopher Wren. On Wren's plaque, it says "Reader, if you seek a monument look around you". Wren didn't actually want that on his plaque (he was modest) but its there now and he can't do anything about it. After the crypt, I took one last look around and tried to take it all in (impossible) and left. I decided to do one of those walking tours I always do. This time, it was of the The City.

My first stop was St. Nicholas Cole, a church that was almost completely destroyed during WWII from the German bombing. I didn't like this church that much frankly. My tour led me to St. James Garlickhythe Church but it was locked so I couldn't get in and see it. Then I walked over to St. Mary-le-Bow, yet another church (picture 9). This one I was able to get into. Tradition has it that anyone heard within earshot of the bells of the church is said to be a true Londoner or Cockney. From there, I walked over to Mansion House, where the City of London's Lord Mayor lives. I looked at the outside of the Royal Exchange. My last stop was the Bank of England (picture 10) and the museum inside it. James, my cousin Sonya's husband, works for the Bank of England. The building was designed by Sir John Soane. That's the guy who's house I went to a couple weeks ago. The museum was pretty cool but I'm not that interested in money so I didn't stay very long. The highlight of the visit was that I got to lift up a gold bar. It ways about 26 lbs. and is worth around £200,000 ($400,00). It was awesome.

Then I took the Tube to Victoria to buy a Coach ticket for tomorrow because I wanted to go to Brighton which is a town on the English Channel. I walked back to the flat and on the way back, there was a really cool sunset (picture 11). I ate dinner. I had minced beef and onion pies things along with green beans. It was all pretty good. Before you know it, I might actually cook myself an entire meal at once. I watched Barack Obama's speech from yesterday (about race and politics in the US) on YouTube. It was so good. And that's about it. I hope everyone had a good Wednesday!!

Ciao!