Westminster Abbey easily became one of my favorite buildings in London--how could it not, with its beautiful architecture? Buildings like this remind me of how young the United States is. I was happily pointing out the quatrefoil and Gothic arch designs in the windows to myself. The stained glass made me think of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and I wondered if he had felt inspired by the very windows I was admiring. Coronations take place in this building! Unfortunately photography was not allowed inside, so all I will have in the future are hazy memories of the intricately carved ornamentation. I especially loved looking at the carved letters and I did several sketches of the serifs. Is it a bit odd that I got excited about carved words in stone? There was an enormous sense of regalness to the stone slabs of messages--it takes a lot of time and good craftsmanship to form those letters, and even more to form words with letters in a consistent style.
I was emotionally affected when the tour guide led us to the area where famous English writers were buried. I remember reading their books in high school, but never dreamt of visiting their monuments. The story about how the beggars came to visit Charles Dickens's site was very touching--I nearly started crying. The beggars could not afford to buy flowers or gifts, so they left scraps of their clothing. It reminded me of the biblical story about a poor woman who donated a few coins to the temple, and Jesus said that she had a definite place in Heaven because she gave all that she could when she didn't have much to begin with.
It seemed fitting that a similar story took place in Westminster Abbey.
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