The day started out with us getting up at 730 to meet everyone at nine. It was later then the other days, but still a little too early. Susie stayed behind on this museum day, so Darrin took us a roundabout way to the Tube station. It was cool to see something a little different. We got off and walked in a circle before we found the Sir John Soane Museum. Darrin had us split into two groups. One group would go into the Sir John Museum while the other went to the British Museum. I was in the British Museum group. We walked the semi-long distance to the large museum. Unfortunately we only had 45 minutes to walk around it. I broke off with Leslie and Mary to search for the Rosetta Stone. It wasn't hard to find. Main thing that tipped us off that this slab of rock was it, the millions of people surrounding it. Now don't get me wrong, the stone's history is great and it really helped us understand, but it kind of looks like any old rock with carvings on it. That being said, it didn't stop me from taking a picture of it! haha. I mean who doesn't want to say, "I've seen the Rosetta Stone in person"? We then wandered a little further and found the mummy rooms! Now that was cool! I have always loved the Discovery Chanel specials about tombs and mummies, so to see all the burial stuff in person was great! It's also crazy to think about how many things they actually mummified. I mean there were cats, cows, and people. If those were all mummified there are probably other animals they did. The coffins are so intricately painted and well preserved. They respected the dead; we have learned that since the time we are in third grade and so we say yeah yeah, but to actually see it in person you know it is true. it means something to you. Plus it was just plain cool! There was also real human skulls, kind of creepy but kind of cool. Then there was the items they were buried with. There were plates, jewelry (which I loved), pets, and artwork. Seems a little crazy to go to the grave with all those items. I know the Egyptians believed it would go with them to the after life, but seems a little greedy. On the other hand if they hadn't done that we wouldn't know as much as we do. I was just over all impressed with the items in the Egyptian section. The saddest part was to see a skeleton of a baby. After seeing what this exhibit had to offer we made our way to the Greek architecture. This exhibit was fun. I got to review all my history knowledge. I also got to see this statue of a horse that was huge! I seriously wanted to take it home with me. Then I joined Leslie and Mary downstairs were there were pieces of columns, pediments, and statues all over the place. The coolest thing was the HUGE ionic capital. I never expected a capital of a column to be that huge! I had to get a picture with it. There were also great examples of Corinthian capitals. The room was also full of egg and dart details! All my knowledge from history came flooding in. Soon it was time to meet up with the group to walk to the next museum.
The Sir John Soane Museum was our next stop. It was really cool, though I could never live in the house. So basically this man John Soane collected art, and filled his house with it. He was an architect and his house was built for his art. He had hidden doors that opened and held even more art. you never knew where the art could pop out of. There was also a hidden desk in a statue of Apollo! There were two rooms that were my favorite. One was the swinging door one. There was like four layers of doors and under each layer more paintings were hidden. It also hid these amazing sketches of great Greek and Roman architecture. But my favorite was this painting of a port. It had many ships and people. It was really able to convey the movement of the ocean. It was a realistic interpretation, that still had the artists style in it. It was absolutely lovely. Then we moved to this room full of architectural models. They were so tiny, but a perfect replica. The person who made all of them must have gone insane. the Milan Cathedral was my favorite. It had every arch and every intricate detail. You seriously could picture the big one by looking at the small one. There were others but that one stood out the most. It was so intricately carved and probably took forever to make. It was really impressive. It was also the first time the collection had been displayed since the 1930's! I felt lucky to see it. The house was rather quirky. It was so cluttered with art that I couldn't imagine living in it. You were scared you would knock something over, because no matter where you turned there something was. But even if you couldn't live in it you could appreciate the great lengths he went to to make his house a museum. He put so many hidden places just to store it. This man was seriously dedicated.
After the museum Benae, Leslie, Jessica, and I sat in the park and ate lunch. We were killing the time before we were going to meet Rachel at the tube station. Benae fed the birds, which freaked the rest of us out because the birds flew in so close to us. It was a little entertaining though. After finishing lunch and killing two spiders who wanted to be my friend, we walked to the station. Unfortunately Rachel never met us there. After 15 minutes of waiting we headed down to catch the train. We took it to Notting Hill. If you haven't been there, I suggest it. We walked down the street and there were so many cute shops. No matter where you looked there was some cute purse or dress in the window. We stopped in one store that was darling. Benae bought a purse for herself and for her sister. And I found the perfect carry-on bag. I decided to come back for it later so I didn't have to carry it every where. We then continued on to see if the market was at Portobello Road. Unfortunately it was not. The little shops on the street made up for it. We had a great time going in all the shops and seeing the cute rooms. One had the best designer! There was gorgeous wallpaper, with a green background with silver floral item. Then there was an old red/orange brick that mixed together looked fabulous. So as much as we loved the clothes we loved the decor ten times more. We went into another store that was full of cute jewelry. They made necklaces out of old ties and wooden beads. It was really cool and inventive. I think I'm going to make my own once I am back in the States. they also had bracelets made the same way. There was a leather jacket we tried to get Leslie to buy because it was only 25 pounds, which was an amazing deal. Plus she looked amazing in it. Unfortunately she decided against it. On we went window shopping and looking at dresses. I finally went back and got my adorable bag! It is practical and a souvenir, can it get much better? One of the places we walked by had an Egg Chair, and a Swan Chair, both designed by Jacobsen. It was fun to be able to spot what a chair was. In the past we would just walk by and be oh that is cool. Now we can say that is this kind of chair by this person. Knowledge really boosts your self confidence! Before we headed back to our flat we stopped by a souvenir store where I bought my brother a great shirt, and Benae got her family souvenirs.We got on the tube and headed back to our flat.
We decided later that evening that cooking didn't sound appealing, so we went out to eat. We went to the Gourmet Burger place. It was really good. It's interesting that over here they often have you sit down figure out what you want to eat, go to a cash register and order, then someone brings it to you. I have gone to two or three restaurants that are like that. The burgers were really good and the fries were also very good. We took photos and Leslie accidentally spilled water on Benae. You couldn't really tell though cause her jeans were way dark anyways. We then left after having a great time and ended it with buying cookies at Ben's Cookies. They were pretty good, my grandma's are better (but whose grandma doesn't make the best), but still really good. I was exhausted by the time I got back. I finished one of my sketches and then took a shower, finished a blog, and went to bed. It was a full day of fun and shopping! Day nine would soon come- Bath!
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| Rosette Stone |
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| Mummified Cow |
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| Mummy |
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| Detail that goes into this thing... |
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| human skulls |
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| Afterlife objects |
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| A beautiful piece of jewelry |
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| The huge horse I want |
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| Didn't I say it was huge! Look at that Ionic Capital and think of how big the column must have been! |
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| I really liked this image |
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