London Calling

The voyage continues......After the British Library yesterday, we took a nice warm walk through London to the British Museum - It's basically England's version of the Louvre, and in all honesty, I think I saw more cool things here than in the Louvre. Maybe my feet were less tired or something, but I just really enjoyed looking at all the artifacts and pieces of ruins inside the Brit Museum instead of the art of the Louvre. This museum was much better organized and had actual giant chunks of Roman and Greek ancient ruins inside the building. For some reason I was extremely impressed by the huge masses of columns from Rome that sat in the quiet, nearly empty basement of the British Museum - And there was even a long hallway filled with wall engravings and broken pieces of sculptures that the British ambassador in the 1800s took from the Greek Parthenon to show off in England. The Venetians raided the Parthenon in the mid-1600s and the Turks blew it up later, so the ruins were eventually stripped of almost all its major sculptures, which are now scattered in museums across the world. They were overwhelming to view, against the backdrop of a re-constructed Greco-Persian temple. And in other rooms, I viewed Egyptian mummies, some of the oldest clocks, watches, and coins of the world. The British Museum had a wide variety of sculptures, and even though I'd seen soooo many in Florence, I really did love the Roman ruins. Can't wait to see more in Rome!

Oh, and the best thing of ALL - I got to see Platform 9 3/4 (from Harry Potter, for anyone who doesn't know) at King's Cross Station on my way back from the British Museum. I think I was more excited about this than any other tourist destination I've been to yet. Just kidding, kind of, not really...but it was SO great - just a hidden corner of the huge station, with a small sign indicating Platform 9 3/4 and a pretend cart that's cut so it looks like it's driving invisibly into the wall. Very exciting, even though Nick pretended like he didn't know me while I got all excited about Harry Potter. And don't worry, I got plenty of pictures.

Today, we took a daytrip just outside London, to Greenwich where the 0 degree latitude (the Prime Meridian) goes straight down the center of the earth. It was nice to get out of the bustling city for a little, and it was a beautiful day to explore the seaside (or actually just river-side) town. It felt like a small village, with lower buildings than London and lots of cute shops and cafes. Maybe the best part of the day was when we stopped for scones - filled with jam and clotted cream - right outside the train station when we arrived. Snacking on these for our walk by the wharf and up to the royal observatory, we walked through the only sunshine London has seen in probably five years. I felt very Englishy with my scone. It was delicious. And still clogging my arteries. Mmmmmm.
So up the hill we walked, a long stroll up a grassy field toward the observatory, where we stood in line with all the other tourists straddling the two hemispheres of the earth. I stood on the east while Nick stood on the west and we took a photo of our feet on opposites sides of the world. The observatory has planetarium shows, which we didn't bother to see, but otherwise had a pretty cool display of a telescope and all the contraptions astronomers of the 1600s used when they started discovering how the universe really worked. It was a nice walk, the scone was fabulous, and the Prime Meridian was something I never thought I would see. Overall a very successful day, and Nick even got to spend a few minutes looking at SUPER exciting naval artifacts at the Greenwich Maritime Museum.

So we're going to Dublin tomorrow for Saint Patrick's Day, expecting to celebrate it the good old fashioned American way - within limits, of course. Be back on Thursday for some more blogging and rest after a fun few days! Pictures posted soon on the Webshots link on the top left of my page! Cheers loves!