The Magic of Light

To celebrate the beginning of the weekend, we decided to head to the Victoria and Albert Museum, a wonderfully elegant building full of all sorts of design treasures---sort of like an older sister to New York's lovely Cooper-Hewitt Museum, except the permanent exhibits (and even some of the temporary ones) are free. Before we went in, we noticed this rather humble structure in the middle of the large road,

and realized it was one of those rest stops/ coffee shacks for taxi drivers to park their cars and grab a bite. Apparently the public is also welcome to buy coffee and treats at some of these places--and since we were in want of coffee, we thought about trying our luck, but then we thought about how the V&A was likely to serve up espresso-based coffee instead of the brewed stuff, so we ducked into the museum's impressive entrance instead.

Although we were definitely not in Vancouver, the first thing that caught my eye reminded me of that part of the world--an enormous, striking Dale Chihuly glass chandelier hanging over the information desk:

If any of you are fans and want to get a glimpse of his studio, and have an amazing Seattle experience besides, go on the Fremont Ice Cream Cruise next time you're down in Seattle (their root-beer floats are divine in the summer). Anyway, back to London: we didn't linger long at the entrance, since I'd heard there was classical music going on in one of the rooms. We arrived just in time to hear a few performances by some talented students on piano, violin, and cello from the neighbouring Royal College of Music. The pianist was a Torontonian and when he introduced the pieces, we both thought, "How strange--he sounds just like us!" We've gotten so used to being the only speakers around with our type of accent that our own inflections already sound strange to us. Anyway, as befits a performance in a building dedicated to design, the room where the recital was held wasn't too shabby:

But how about that coffee? Well, we shared a French press full of excellent coffee in the V&A café, which again had us staring up at the chandelier in the amazing room:

As a sidenote, the washrooms nearest the café are the nicest we've encountered in London--each stall is a self-enclosed room with its own sink and hand dryer, and the soap and hot water are plentiful (something that may seem trivial, but on the other hand, if you live in/ have visited London, you probably know that cold water and questionable soap is more of the norm). We wandered through a few of the galleries that were open late, but ended up spending most of our time in the courtyard, where an incredible installation of light and sound held our attention. The movements of the people weaving in and around the installation affected its visual and auditory rhythms--something that successfully made us feel part of the art. My photos don't really do the installation justice (you can't hear the lovely sounds that went along with the lights, or see the ways in which the light crawled or raced up and down the columns at times), but the lights and music were so fluid, so lovely in the January night that twice we started to wander back inside the museum only to be drawn back out to the colours and notes that filled the moody garden space.