Friday and Saturday -- London

[klwilliams]

acanthusleaf and I arrived in Heathrow around 8:00 p.m. Friday night. Getting our passports stamped took forever, though customs didn't have anyone there to even look at our bags, much less search them. That is, if I'd had my bag. American had lost it (though L's bags made it). Fortunately, I had brought a toothbrush, nightgown, and change of underthings in my carry-on, and it made the trip to the hotel in the Underground easier.

We had booked rooms in the Park International in South Kensington over the Internet, which was fortunate, since we didn't have to find a place to stay late on a Friday night. We found the hotel easily enough, checked in, then discovered that the only place open to get food was a Kentucky Fried Chicken, so L's first English meal was greasy and nasty. We didn't care -- we were tired, we ate, we went back to the room and crashed.

We woke up a little late the next morning (another theme of the trip), and wandered off to the British Museum via Underground. Next to the Museum we found a little family restaurant still serving a traditional English breakfast, in this case eggs, bacon, toast, baked beans, and tea. We then did the fast walking tour of the Museum.

Since I was last there, they've moved the British Library to its own building, so the area where that used to be is a big open space under a skylight, with the shops, bathrooms, and a meeting room in a big round buiding in the middle of the open space, with galleries opening off it. We went through the Egyptian room very quickly -- "Look, there's the Rosetta Stone. There's a famous statue. There's a famous monolith." -- then went to see the frieze of the Parthenon (which is what they're calling it now, instead of the Elgin Marbles). This was also in a new room, very vast and tall, and was very impressive. I particularly liked the depictions of the battle between the centaurs and the lapiths. I'm going to look that up, since there's bound to be an interesting story in there.

We then went up to the Medieval area, where L went crazy (understandably). Since I had less interest in the jewelry and had seen it all a couple of times before, I wandered into the Roman Britain room and took a good look at it. I particularly liked the items from the temple to Mercury, including the lead curse tablets. These are thin slabs of lead that had a stylistic message on it that comes down to "please curse the people who stole my cow in many horrible ways unless they give it back". The lead was then folded up several times and given to Mercury. They didn't say what he did with them.

We tried to visit L. Cornellisen and Son (artists colourmen who have a shop right next to the British Museum), but they closed at 5:00, and we just missed them. This also became a theme.

We went back to our hotel (my bag was there! yeah!), where we had a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street. Afterwards, we went looking for a pub, and went down the wrong street. This was fortunate, because it meant we got a beautiful look at the Natural History Museum all lit up at night. I don't what it was before it was a museum, but it's a beautiful building.

And so to bed.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I particularly liked the items from the temple to Mercury, including the lead curse tablets.

We had a discussion about this last night, incidentally, and decided it is a fine old custom and should be reinstated. Although all the curses would relate to Tony Blair.

[larryhammer]

The battle between the Lapiths and centaurs took place at a wedding where someone stupidly gave the big lunks too much (that is, any) wine. Ovid covers it in some detail, starting here. (The story's in quotes because it's being related by Nestor.)

---L.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Larry. Terrific site! I have added it to my favorites and anticipate spending hours reading and such. I suspect that somewhere here I have that tho, as the whole event sounds so familiar.

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

No words of wisdom to add from here. I just wanted to let you know I'm really looking forward to further "adventures of."