Lions at RIBA

lions on the staircase, originally uploaded by supafly.

I'm almost a week behind on this, but I'll have plenty of time to catch up now that my honey has left for India. I'm going to miss him so much and now it's just me in London - plus a house full of people. Abigail (whose dad is the landlord) broke her wrist and is officially staying in London for the summer instead of going to Thailand. Her best friend from New Jersey is visiting. Plus, there's Martin, from Germany who is here as an insurance writer and also Abigail's boyfriend and her friend's boyfriend who is taking classes at the London School of Economics - oh and Abigail's cat who just moved in from Surrey and roams around looking for an open window to escape from. Funny, the house has more people in it than it ever has, but I feel so alone.

Last Monday was a slow day. I always need time to recover from the weekends so I slept in and took it easy. Eventually, I got up, made toast in the broiler and went to the Royal Institute of British Architects to check out their current exhibit. Gallery two had a series of black and white architectural photographs taken by John Donat. He did a lot of "model photographs" and one was of a proposed Mies van der Rohe building imposed on the London skyline. It was so modern that it looked completely out of place - probably why it was never approved and built.

The exhibit in Florence Hall was a collaboration between architects and schools. The students at grade schools worked with architects to plan and design different types of green spaces for their school. There were models, evaluations, and plans by the students presented in clever ways.

After that, I headed home to have dinner with my housemates. Abigail and her boyfriend made some delicious pasta and a salad and we welcomed our newest roommate Martin to London from Hanover, Germany. Marshall was even able to get home from work in time for it and Kier - a roommate in the process of moving out was there too, so it was a delicious meal with lots of good company.