London: 8.14.2008

With a few things left to see in London, two friends and I decided to wade through the rain and take our last visit to that huge metropolis. First, we ate lunch. We left later than planned because we still had to attend class in the morning, and our stomachs demanded that we indulge them when our train came to a stop. Luckily, Amanda brought her guidebook and we found in it a reference to a middle eastern restaurant. It turned out to be very Mom & Pop, and the owners cooked everything right before our eyes. The portions were huge and inexpensive, and we were treated with the greatest amount of generosity and cordiality we've found in England so far. It was great and we left very full. Perhaps, too full.
The next stop was The British Museum where we saw some specific things of note: The Rosetta Stone, wall pieces and statues from the entrance of Palace of Tiglath-Pilser III at Numrud, Lely's Venus (Aphrodite), Parthenon Metopes, representations of spirits from various island nations, tombs for Egyptian kings, and a statue from Easter Island. I also enjoyed one more modern display called "Cradle to Grave Pharmacopeia", which followed two average British citizens throughout their entire lives (fictional citizens representative of the whole), and measured the medicinal intake of each. It was something like 14,000 doses of medicines of various kinds over the span of a lifetime, and the creators sewed into a thin cloth slots with pills in them to represent the amount.

After that, we went to The British Library, which we intended to go to first but weren't as close to. The guidebook we had said that it stayed open until 8, but it actually only stayed open until 5:30 or something, and we were too late to go in. Only special academics and librarians can go in after that time for the last few hours of the evening. So, that was a huge disappointment because it was one of the main things I wanted to see on this trip, but somehow it managed to slip between the cracks.

One of my friends hadn't been to Buckingham Palace, so we went by there for a quick picture and then left London for Oxford.