We slept in a bit this morning, which was lovely, and got ready for our day, taking much more care with our appearances that we have all week. The train up from Lewes was nice, and we only got turned around once on the Underground before finally making it to the British Museum.
The museum was wonderful! It makes me sad not to always be this close to world-class museums. One of the things I talk about with the other people on site is the size of the U.S. and how it makes travel difficult. Comparatively, getting around England is a breeze.
The first thing we saw at the museum was the Rosetta Stone. It was surrounded by people, much like the Hope Diamond display at the Museum of Natural History in D.C., but we were patient and got to see it up close.
We wandered through the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman wing, and saw a lot of amazing things, like bits of the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We also saw the Elgin marbles.
Fist bump!
Not that I'm complaining about getting to marbles from the Parthenon, but shouldn't they be returned to Greece?
We went to the King's Library, which was amazing! I want to live, be married, and die in the library. They had some interesting items there, like the crystal ball and scrying mirror of Elizabeth I's occultist, John Dee.
Antler ornament carved with a galloping horse, thought to be inspired by Przewalksi horses, which you may remember from my other travel blog.
Free-standing replica of the Rosetta Stone. Not nearly as many people crowding this one.
Crystal ball and scrying mirror of Elizabeth I's astrologer, John Dee.
We were starving after all this, so we decided to come back to the museum some other weekend and finish it up. We got really lost trying to find a)somewhere to eat, and b) a movie theater showing Harry Potter. Eventually we found our way to Leicester Square, where we found both! We had dinner at a nice Italian place, and saw Harry Potter at a very nice theater, who's lobby was completely covered in promotional photos. I was in geek heaven. The screening room was gorgeous inside, with a ceiling covered in twinkling lights and the colors shifting from blue to pink like Sleeping Beauty's gown.
We filled 100-gram bags full of several kinds of candy in the lobby before the show and got some popcorn. The commercials before the show were entertaining in the way that foreign commercials are always a bit funny. The movie itself was...well, if you've read the book and seen the film, then you know.
We took the Tube back to Victoria station where we caught the train back to Lewes. Or at least we thought we did. Apparently the attendant at Victoria Station from whom we asked directions put us on the wrong train, and we ended up sitting for an hour in the middle of the night at Gatwick Airport waiting for the correct train. By the time we got back to the B&B, we were exhausted and freezing and collapsed into bed.
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