Okay, please stop looking at me like that. I know it's been forever since I blogged, and several of you have been kind enough to remind me of this on an almost daily basis (I love you, Clem), but I'm back!
One of the reasons it's taken me forever to update is because every time I think about how much I have to tell you, I get really overwhelmed.
Whose fault is that? Mine! But in order to prevent hyperventilation, I'm going to fast forward through a few things. Please forgive me. I, like nearly everyone else on the planet (except bad people), plan to do better in 2011!
1) My days spent in Iowa were wonderful and filled with wonderful people.
2) My birthday was super wonderful, and also filled with wonderful people, and a bit too much cider.
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And now we're caught up to today! Since I'm leaving for Dublin tomorrow (woop!), today was pretty much a work day. But this morning I went to the National Portrait Gallery with Niall and Ammo and here is what I learned:
1) You can die of a cherry overdose. Seriously. Some lady who was some royal man's mistress (they really like mistresses) actually died of a "surfeit of cherries." Since I do not like cherries, except when maraschino and in cocktails, this sounds like a pretty awful way to go.
2) Oliver Cromwell killed a lot of Irish people. Niall, who is Irish, was less than thrilled to read the info next to Cromwell's portrait, which talked about what a fantastic military commander he was. That is definitely true, but there was hardly a mention of the fact that he killed A LOT of Irish people. Thankfully Niall cleared this up for us through thinly suppressed rage.
3) British children are really cute. I actually knew this before, but it was confirmed by the gaggles of schoolchildren parading around the museum in their dapper little uniforms. They have posh accents, most of them are pretty well-behaved, and even the ones who are naughty achieve instantaneous forgiveness because of aforementioned accents.
4) Famous British people made some really odd choices about who or what would be included in their portraits. My favorites were a guy who chose to have himself immortalized with a young boy tucking in his pants for him (creepy) and another guy who had his portrait done with a literate monkey by his side. How do I know the monkey was literate? Because he was reading a classic novel using his opposable thumbs, of course!
5) You should be careful how you act because someday if your portrait is in a museum they're going to tell everyone. Prime example: Samuel Johnson's portrait was accompanied by text that described him as, "Massive, ungainly, plagued with nervous tics, [and] the victim of melancholia [who] could not bear solitude." Oh, and it also thankfully mentioned that he invented the dictionary. Yikes.
Our trip to the museum ended with a lovely lunch in Trafalgar Square and a nice walk back home. It was so good to see everyone over the break but I'm very happy to be back in London, too!
Off to Dublin tomorrow! I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!
Love,
Jess
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