JADM Day 3 - Victoria & Albert Museum, London

After doing remarkably well with jetlag on my first full day in London, I ended up not really falling asleep until almost four a.m. last night. Consequently, I somehow managed to sleep until after eleven -- I shut off my alarm while I was still asleep, and so ended up changing my plans for today. I had meant to leave the city for parts unknown, but instead went to London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

Simply put, the place was spectacularly up my alley -- so much so that I spent five hours there and still have to go back tomorrow to see the other half of what I wanted to see. Luckily, the main museum is free -- but the first thing I did was pay to enter the special exhibition called 'Thomas Hope: Regency Designer." I'm thrilled that I did; cameras weren't allowed in the special exhibition, but I took copious notes. They had recreated a few of his rooms, and many of his furnishings, sculptures, and artworks were on display. Between this, the State Rooms at Windsor Palace, Aspley House, and my planned visits to Brighton, Bath, and some other musuems, I'm getting a tremendous feel for pre- and post-Regency British interior design, which is fueling all sorts of ideas for future books. I wanted to buy the book they were selling outside the exhibit, but it costs 50 pounds and seems to weigh that much as well, which would destroy my baggage allowance. Sigh.

After the exhibit, I had a sandwich in the outrageously opulent museum cafe (will post pics tomorrow when I'm logged onto my computer rather than the internet connection on my room's tv) and used the museum map to plot my plan of attack for the rest of the museum. While I do love Asian design (and they have nearly a whole floor of it, in addition to a special exhibition on China), I decided to skip all things non-British and prioritize time periods that may be useful for future romance novels. However, I only made it to two sections -- Britain 1760-1900, and the fashion gallery.

The great thing about this museum is that it's focused primarily on art and design, but with a heavy emphasis on furnishings, textiles, and craftsmanship. This makes it ideal for better understanding the lifestyles of the upper classes (since fewer artifacts from lower classes have survived, and anyway who wants to read a romance novel about two peasants with dim prospects and limited life expectancy?), and is preferable to me personally since I've always liked just about any other kind of decorative, musical, or written art over paintings.

So I got to see all sorts of furnishings, and some mouthwatering replicas of drawing rooms, wall-hangings, etc. I also got to see a lot of interesting fashion -- Tammy would have been more interested in the modern fashions, including a poster of Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss modeling Calvin Klein underwear ca1990, as well as a velour Juicy Coutur tracksuit, but I preferred the great 1800s day gowns. Also, who says the Victorians didn't have a sense of humor -- one exhibit mentioned that in honor of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, someone made bustles (which go under your skirt to make your derriere look bigger, balancing out the hoopskirts that were popular at the time) that played 'God Save the Queen' when you sat on them.

After leaving, I had dinner at an Italian restaurant near my hotel, where I had a glass of wine with dinner and a glass of Bailey's with dessert in an effort to ensure that I fall asleep tonight. I also wrote five or six (small, notebook) pages about a romance novel that I want to write after this one -- I had originally thought that the girl in that book would by Malcolm's sister (Malcolm is the hero of my current book) -- but now I think that I want to set it in the Georgian period (likely early 1770s or late 1790s) and increase the conflict for the girl by ensuring that she has no family she would be willing to turn to when the hero of that book shows up to take revenge for some evildoings perpetrated by her late husband. It all sounds farcical now (what romance isn't?), but I've got some good ideas for it -- and the possibility that I can work in the long-awaited character of Salim the Moor, which my friend Salim has lobbied heavily for.

I spent the last hour uploading today's pictures (all 169 of them) and annotating them using Picasa's captioning software. I'll hook the internet up to my laptop tomorrow and post some of them, but now I'm going to bed!