lofty art-ness

I've not been doing much noteworthy recently. Mainly it's been class and grocery shopping. Yesterday, however, I went to Camden Market and the surrounding area. It's like Willy Street back home, but less aging-hippie-ish, more urban-punk-rock-ish. I spent most of my time in Stables Market, which is (surprise) a converted stable. It seems to big to have been just a stable, so I think there used to be something else there as well. If the statues are anything to go by, there were horses and blacksmiths and stableboys, all in this one area. Really, there were horse statues everywhere. The giant disembodied horse head was a little creepy. But the whole neighborhood seemed a bit edgier, and more down to earth - almost homey.
Today I wandered around downtown. I went to St. James's Palace because I thought there was going to be a parade - there wasn't, it's tomorrow. But I walked to Buckingham Palace from there, and then to St. James's park. I then went to the Westminster Abbey/Houses of Parliament area, taking awful touristy pictures the whole way. I got bored of walking and went to the National Gallery.
Most people reading this will know I'm not a big art girl, and I get bored in museums, but I actually had fun and looked at paintings this time. I discovered I like Rubens and Cezanne. I did make sure to hit up their "must see" paintings - one of van Gogh's sunflower paintings, one of Monet's bridge+waterlilies, and the da Vincis, the Michaelangelos, and the Raphaels. To be honest, I didn't care much for the sunflowers or the waterlilies. Most of Monet's paintings just looked messy to me, and I thought some of the other van Goghs were better. I think my favorite was Samson and Delilah by Rubens. Either that, or this random Dutch painter that I had never heard of called Vilhelm Hammershoi had a painting called interior that I liked.
After that I went to the National Portrait Gallery, which was right next door. I went through the Tudor rooms and saw all those paintings that were used in my history books. It was pretty cool, but I didn't finish because I was tired and cranky. I'll probably need to go back to see the rest and fully appreciate it.
Next on my list:
Greenwich observatory
Churchill's War Rooms

Paintings I liked (if you read this far I assume you care about my opinions of art):
Rubens - Samson and Delilah
Hammershoi - Interior
van Gogh - A Wheatfield with Cypresses
Cezanne - Hillside in Provence
Pissarro - The Boulevard Montmartre at Night
Renoir - Gladioli in a Vase

"Eh" paintings
van Gogh - Sunflowers
Monet - The Water-lily Pond

Oh-My-God-I-Hate-This-Painter-And-His-Stupid-Boats-Can-We-Just-Move-On-Now Paintings:
JMW Turner - Rain, Steam and Speed - The great Western Railway
JMW Turner - The Fighting Temeraire (Don't believe them when they say it's a must. It's not.)