London, Day 16: The British Museum

The British Museum is one of numerous national museums in London. Like all of the other national museums, it is, of course, free! Our class took a trip to the museum. We arrived by way of the tube. Oddly, they had us meet at the Gloucester Road tube station, which is the station nearest our hotel. This means that all 40 of us then tried to cram ourselves onto the train all at once. Sure, they're big trains, but sometimes they're already pretty full when they get to the station. And we weren't the only ones trying to get on!

So, after a fun game of Sardines (and trying to keep Dr. Bruhn's 4 year old son Sam under control--I was sitting near them), we arrived at the tube station by the museum. After a bit of a walk (made slightly longer by Sam's insistence on clinging to various students around him), we finally got to the museum. We had a guide there. She didn't work at the museum, but was one of the Blue Badge guides around London.

The British Museum contains historical artifacts from around the world. I guess that's one of the advantages to having a world-wide empire. Lots of souvenirs.

We saw marble carvings from the Parthenon, statues from the Mausoleum, and a bunch of Egyptian mummies. The mummies were probably the coolest. There were several decorated caskets, actual mummies, an unwrapped mummy, and mummified animals (including a baby crocodile!). The Rosetta Stone was perhaps a close second. We even got to get up close and personal with a copy. They keep the real thing in a glass case.

After the mummies, I got separated from my group. I wandered aimlessly in the beautiful entry room of the museum until they got done. I missed just one exhibit, so the guide took me back and showed me what I had missed.

Since we had just taken the tube to the museum, we didn't all have to go back as an organized group. I actually ended up getting dinner with Theresa and Erika near the museum. We had some wonderful Greek food.

You can see all my pictures of the British museum here: http://flickr.com/photos/shigosei/tags/britishmuseum/