London Day 1 - British Museum

Gratuitous statue pic cause it's sitting the way Coco does and that made me smile

We fit So Much in today.   Wow.   

Impressive Curb Appeal ;)

We started with the British Museum — Google Maps gave us subway directions and we found it easily.  Lots of signs around warning about pick pockets, but we luckily didn’t have any issues.    Entry is free, and we got there right as it opened which had the significant advantage of not being packed yet.

Fascinated by how clear it is after thousands of years

The main thing on my list was the Rosetta Stone - which is, conveniently, right at the entrance.  And by being there first, we had a good chance to see it without a crowd.   It was significantly bigger than I had in mind - that was the main thing that surprised me.  😂 I have no idea why I didn’t clue into that, but here we are.

Seriously - how do you bring this home?

Following that we hit up the Egypt section - partially cause it was there, and partially cause it was on both our lists :)   Again, the surprise here to me was the size of things.   Now it turns out we were in the first of two Egyptian sections, specifically the sculpture collection.  So yes - we started big :).  Things that got me were: what incredible condition they were in after thousands of years, and how were they ever brought to the museum?!?!  Lol I honestly couldn’t get past that - it’s not just some jewelry or papyrus they helped themselves too, but sculptures and pillars, and GATES (okay those weren’t from Egypt, but same concept) - in some cases taller than my house.   I just can’t imagine the logistics to relocating some of this, esp with pre-modern transformation options.

Not the most comfortable pillow I can imagaine

The follow up Egypt section had all sorts of interesting things as well - including multiple coffins, the book of the dead, and a number of “everyday life” items (well, life if you were rich anyways!).  The one that got me was the neck rest — apparently they slept on their sides.  I really have a hard time understanding how those were comfortable.  Maybe they were packed w fabric ;)

Fascinated by these

The museum itself is not air conditioned.  There were fans in almost every room - often w people standing or sitting to take advantage of them.  This resulted in this gem of the statue heads lecturing their modern audience.  I was impressed I managed to get the photo discretely and in a way that didn’t show faces or obvious identifying features.   Lol   

This amused me more than it probably should have.

Both C and I found something completely unexpected that caught our attention.  For me it was the library, for Chris it was the clock room ;)

My squirrel moment

While my item of focus was the Rosetta Stone, Chris’ was the Sutton Hoo helmet, so he was pretty happy when we found it before we even started actively looking for it.

We also found out the middle area is actually a library?   I kinda love that.   Overall, great experience.  And free - I'm still amazed by that.