The British Museum

Today was another productive day, although we focused more time on fewer specific things. Instead of a broad bus tour, we began focusing on some of the places we wanted to look into. Blake had to take care of a few things with wifi and opted to hang out around the apartment for the morning and early afternoon. He ended up exploring the area around Piccadilly Circus tube stop. Alexis, Joanna and myself went to an early breakfast at the Dover Street Apartment café, and then off to the British Museum.

The museum was fascinating. I started off in a special exhibit I had to pay for an extra ticket to see. It was called Treasures of Heaven, and focused on Saints, relics, and devotion to both during Medieval Europe. Seeing the reliquaries and intricately detailed objects created to house what people thought were relics was very interesting. I saw many small reliquaries crafted to house pieces of what people claimed were parts of the true cross. The room was set up with beautiful exhibits of the items and casts built to hold Saints’ relics like arms, legs, drops of blood and hair. It also had a beautiful recreation of a cathedral dome for a ceiling and was playing a solemn and reverent chant for the duration of the visit.

        
The rest of the museum lived up to the high standards people who have seen it before set in my mind prior to my London visit. I saw breathtaking ancient Egyptian ruins like sarcophagi and full mummies. There was ancient Roman architecture and remains. Almost every remaining statue from the original Parthenon is kept in the museum. A beautiful room set up like an ancient library for the Enlightenment period in Europe caught my attention for a while, as well as rooms on Australia and Chinese artifacts. The most stunning exhibit I saw was the Rosetta Stone.  Even though I knew it was there, it was still amazing to see in person.

From the museum, the three of us sent ate at an Italian restaurant called the Forum Café and shopped around in a used booksellers, where I could have browsed all day. We took the tube over to St. Pauls Cathedral, and now I can say I have been to the world’s top 3 largest churches (St. Peters in Rome, St. Pauls in London, and the Duomo in Milan). We got some cappuccinos at a place called Costa Coffee near St. Pauls, and walked backed to the Tube in our first London rain.

Once reuniting with Blake, we hung out at the apartment to talk and laugh, and then went in search for dinner. After finding out the hard way that most places close after 8, we made our way back near our apartment and got some pizza at Bella Pizza. I haven’t been able to get a stable wifi connection to check in with my friends and family as much as I would like to, but I know that will become easier once I’m in Oxford. Until then, I’ll keep you all updated on this trusty blog. By the way, my British accent isn’t getting much better, but it’s still fun to practice.