London, Day 4 (Wednesday 9 December)

Highlights of my third full day in London:
1. British Museum, take two
2. Chelsea
3. Victoria and Albert Museum
4. Trafalgar Square

-----

1. British Museum, take two

So, since I had only visited the upper floor the last time I went to the British Museum, I decided to come back and tackle the ground floor for real. And I'm really glad I did. Their special exhibits were kind of jaw dropping.

In their Egypt room, not only did they have gigantic parts of statues and representations of kings, but they also had the Rosetta Stone. I learned later that some other museum is trying to get it away from the British Museum, but I'm not surprised. Wherever it was originally found probably wants it back. Still, I saw the actual Rosetta Stone. It's really not that interesting; it's more of a symbol of the power of language than anything awesome in itself.

The thing that I saw which was vastly more impressive was the series of Greek and Roman statues illustrating myths. Also, they had about half of the ruins of the Parthenon in the British Museum. It was exciting getting to see them, but it also made me sad, because that's probably the closest I'm ever going to get to Athens, ever. The other thing that was cool about those ruins in particular was the myths that were depicted between the ancient humanoid giant race and the centaurs. That's one of the ones you don't hear while you're at school, and seeing all of the panels was interesting. The capture of movement... the Greeks were geniuses at figuring out the ideal form and realizing it in marble. Just fantastic.

Grabbed lunch at the museum again and went back to the hostel to drop off a souvenir before I moved on with my day.

-----

2. Chelsea

So, I was on my way to the three-museum complex in a southern part of London. I took the Underground to the right stop and everything, but then I took a complete wrong turn once I got to ground level and got lost.

I didn't mind so much, really, because I got lost in Chelsea. So there I am, walking leisurely along the King's Road, looking into the windows of little local shops, and it reminded me of home yet again. There's a little suburb off of Columbus that has a main street just like the King's Road through Chelsea, and I got homesick again, because I used to go to choir rehearsal in that little town. It's really the little things that get to me.

Anyhow, I did eventually find my way back to the museums, after about a half-hour of being delightfully lost.

-----

3. Victoria and Albert Museum

Also just called the V&A. I was kind of ancient-ed out from so much time at the British Museum, so instead I headed to the medieval and Renaissance Europe rooms. I spent more than three hours wandering around there, taking in gilt iconography, altarpieces, diptychs, triptychs, bishops' vestments, restored stained glass windows... and that was just in the medieval section. You can really tell, by what has been preserved, what people were most interested in preserving at that time, and it was their Christian beliefs. Although now I'm attempting a blog post to be published around Christmas about the intersection of feminist beliefs with Christian ones... you'll see, hopefully, if I manage to write it well enough.

Then I went into the Renaissance section, and I was enraptured again by the Elizabethan section of the museum. They had preserved clothing. Clothing! From 400 years ago! It was amazing to see. Also of note was some of the armor I was able to see, as well as the decorative and also useful rifles, crossbows, and pistols. Certain of my gun-loving friends would have loved to see how well they were enameled. Also, seeing restorations of furniture, coats of arms, etc... just wow. I would have liked to explore more, but the museum closed and I was hungry, so I grabbed my dinner on the way down to the tube station.

-----

4. Trafalgar Square

Once I was on the tube, I headed to Trafalgar Square, because Kate had told me on Tuesday that there was usually caroling there. And I wasn't disappointed. They had a gigantic tree erected there, and groups were singing on a dais with microphones in the front. I sat through three different groups; one was, I think, for an environmental charity, one was from a school in the area singing to raise money to buy new instruments, and the last was the carolers from the Royal London Society for the Blind or something like that. I felt bad, but I really couldn't spare any change, or I would have run out of money much faster that I did otherwise.

It's so easy to overspend in England. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking that the pound is the same as the dollar, and it's definitely not. Ah well. I was frugal with food and I was buying Christmas presents, so it was kind of a one time thing.

After Trafalgar, I just made it back to the hostel and wrote again, blah blah blah, business as usual.

- Jen -