Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Valentine's Day

Well it's my turn to brag about what good job Chris did at planning a special Valentine's Day. After our church history seminar, we took a bus and two different trains on the Tube to get into the heart of London. We spent about an hour looking at the National Gallery, one of the most incredible art collections in the world. I think the greatest part of that for me was that just that morning in church history we spent the majority of the seminar discussing the portraits of English leaders we'd been studying. One major painting that we discussed at length called 'The Ambassadors' describes through art much of the transition happening within the England, both religiously and politically, and the artist chose to paint a skull in the bottom middle of the painting, but you can only tell its a skull if you're looking at from the far right side of the painting. Well we got to go look at it that very day. If you're curious about the paintint, here's a link: Click Here.
Other highlights from the National Gallery include Van Gogh's Sunflowers, one of Degas' ballerinas, The Entombment by Michaelangelo, the Arnolfini Portrain by Jan Van Eyck, Cezanne's bathers, Monet's Lily Pond, and Picasso's Child with a Dove. In case it's not clear, I was thrilled to have some time to look at all the incredible holdings. After that we went to see THe Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theater and ended the night with dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant before heading home. Phantom is a musical everyone should see live, the movie was breathtaking and well-produced, but nothing can compare to the actual chandellier crashing and the Phantom appearing all around the theater. Overall, it was a magical day. Oh and some of you might be interested to know that the bum I was dating cleaned up his act and now Chris has short hair and no beard. :)
Pictures are coming I promise. Harass Chris about that, I don't know how to post them exactly...
I hope all of you had magical Valentine's Days too.

posted by Jen and Chris at Oxford @ 8:27 AM