Team Taylor Tidings: Day 33

Back to the madness! We got up at 6:15am to catch our 7:40am train to London. The train ride was quick and we were able to nap on the way. I was a little distracted by an adorable dog on the train who had half his face white and the other half black. I pet him and am proud to say that I pet a dog in every country we visited!

We arrived at Kings Cross Station, yes the one from Harry Potter, and even got out at Platform 9! Platform 9 and ¾ is where you get on to go to Hogwarts. There is supposed to be a sign there but we didn’t see it so maybe we were at a different Platform 9? We took a picture anyway.

We had to navigate our way through the “tube,” which is what they call the metro here. Like Paris, London is quite big with a lot of different lines. We found our way to our hostel, called the Green Man. Well, actually it was a pub with rooms in on the upper floors. So that was kind of different having to check in at a bar. The room was really small and packed with beds but the good news is at least it’s our last hostel!

So we dropped off our stuff and went out to find the British Museum! We got a bit lost getting there but it gave us a chance to see some of the city, which has that cool mixture of old and new. In general, however, London is very modern and seems the most well-kept of the big cities we’ve visited.

We were pretty excited about the British Museum because it’s one of the big ones like the Louvre and the Uffizi, though this museum is much more about artifacts than artwork. However, because London is our last destination and we have been to a great many museums, we were a bit spoiled at this point and much harder to impress. You can only see so much ancient Greek pottery before losing interest, which Nick certainly did.

I was definitely impressed by their ancient Mesopotamia collection, which had a lot of old stone slabs of artwork depicting battle scenes, hunting expeditions, and rituals. I was VERY proud at remembering the name Ashurnasirpal as he is depicted on one of the more famous works shooting lions from his chariot. I was wandering through the halls saying, “Ashurnasirpal should be here… He is probably here…” When I found him, I pointed to the name on the description and shouted triumphantly: “BAM!” Nick assured me that he was indeed impressed. I mean, come on. Ashurnasirpal? Only someone as awesome as me would remember that crazy name.

They did have a pretty crazy Egyptian collection as well with lots of huge statues and so many sarcophagi it blew my mind. We saw a few more mummies there as well and I said to Nick, “Who knows, maybe your dead body will end up in a museum one day. I bet these guys never expected that and here they are.” They had descriptions about the mummification process but I had to stop reading after awhile because I started feeling a bit light-headed, especially with their little brain-extraction tools on display in front of me. Yikes.

There were a few other highlights, including the Rosetta Stone which wasn’t all that exciting to me actually. We also saw an impressive collection of Asian works with the oldest known woodcut and a dizzying array of Buddhist statues and Hindu figurines. They also had a really neat Native American display with clothing and artifacts from the different tribes, which I found very interesting and very well put-together. We especially liked seeing some of the Mayan statues and tablets which were really so different than anything else we’ve seen on our trip. That whole culture has this dark enchantment about it, scary and mysterious.

The ultimate highlight of the British Museum, however, is its collection from the Parthenon in Athens. In seeing all these works from the building itself you get an idea at how large and grandiose this building is and once was. There is a section of sculpture that stretches all around the Parthenon above the columns, called a frieze, and these are broken up into individual scenes called metopes. The metopes were scattered around the room and were very large. Some depicted scenes of centaurs and humans fighting one another and others showed an army on horseback. These metopes were originally painted so that must have been quite an impressive site to have this building, already impressive with its large columns, be topped all the way around with grand and colorful friezes.

Most impressive and most famous are the statues from the pediment, the triangular space above the columns and friezes. These statues, larger than life, depict gods in various poses, most often enacting a scene from Greek myth. The Parthenon was built for the goddess Athena, patron goddess of Athens, so she is depicted on one of the pediments defeating Poseidon in a battle of power and skill. It takes a bit of imagination but in putting together all the pieces of the Parthenon on display in the museum, you can certainly wish you were there to see it at its creation so many years ago. Even today, this building would have wowed its viewers. I would have liked to visit the Parthenon in Athens but Greece didn’t make the cut, unfortunately. Still, the British Museum delivered in that department.

We finished up quick, feet hurting again from another day spent walking and standing, and hurried over to Leicester Square (pronounced Lester for some reason) so that we could look into getting tickets for a musical. We so enjoyed seeing Riverdance and Nick was really hoping to catch a show while in London as well. London is indeed a perfect place to be for a good show as our options were a bit overwhelming. There must have been a good 20 different shows to choose from, including the old classics like Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera!

Nick was hoping to see Les Miserables but Nick Jonas from the oh so popular Jonas Brothers would be cast in the show for the next few weeks so tickets were scarce and we weren’t sure we wanted to deal with the screaming teens. I voted to check out Wicked, which I knew very little about except that the book and the musical are quite popular. We went to the theatre there and they had two seats available for the following evening. The seats were on the first row of the balcony, not too far from the stage, and were around $60 each. Okay then, let’s do it! We were excited about our new plans, though not sure what to expect since we weren’t familiar with the story or songs. We hope it’s good!

We went home fairly early that evening so that I could catch up with the blog. We had also had an early morning so Nick was happy to take a nap. I thought he would be out for good but he got up after a few more bunkmates came in and said he felt lame spending the evening indoors. So we decided to walk toward Hyde Park which was about 15 minutes south of our hostel and had quite an unexpected and unusual experience. Basically, we felt like we were walking through Baghdad. There were Middle Eastern folk everywhere, including women wearing burqas. There was even some Arab language written on a lot of the signs of the stores we passed. We also saw a ton of Middle Eastern men sitting outside smoking who-knows-what out of these huge fancy bottles, like the caterpillar on Alice in Wonderland. Call me uncultured, but I have no idea what they were smoking or what that is called. It kind of smelled like incense. Anyway, it was a very different experience for us both and we definitely felt out of place.

We made it to Hyde Park but by then it was dark so we couldn’t really explore. I just got a few shots of a cool fountain on the corner and then we headed back through Baghdad and back to our hostel for some more blogging. On to more adventures tomorrow!

PHOTOS:

Here I am at King's Cross Station near Platform 9. Didn't see Harry Potter though.

We passed this building on our walk through London to the British Museum. I am not sure what it is but I thought it captured a bit of the London atmosphere. There are buildings like these all over the city.

I took this picture because all the chimneys lined up reminded me of Mary Poppins. How cute!

I had to have my red telephone booth picture, of course!

We made it to the British Museum! Little did we know our feet would start hurting soon thereafter. All that cushy living at the Bakers made us soft!

We saw an endless amount of these Greek pots so it got old after a while. Actually, I was amazed that any museum could have so many. I would have been impressed to see that many 2000 years ago in Athens!

This is a Metope from the Parthenon in Athens. They had a lot of these with the centaurs fighting off humans. I guess they were at a party together but when the centaurs ran off with the women, things turned sour.

Nick blends in with the Parthenon pediment display. I would love to have seen the Parthenon back in the day! It must have been glorious!

Here he is, Ashurnasirpal. I guess when you have taken the same Art History class twice, you should come away knowing a thing or two.

I was just fascinated by these stone slabs for some reason. The style is just so unique.

Ramses! He could work on his pecs, I think. Kind of flappy. Looks like he's taken a bullet though so he must be tough. Actually this thing was huge so that would be closer to a canon wound.

Look familiar? This one is also somewhat famous. Size matters in Egyptian art so the wife is smaller than the husband and the slave is pretty much a munchkin.

Kind of random, but this thing was just cool. I guess it was mechanical and would slide out over a table and then it's canons would shoot. That would be a spectacle even today, let alone 200 years ago.

The Hindu religion is definitely big on the elephant.

Can you imagine having a migraine with that many heads? You'd need like 30 ibuprofens.

Those crazy Mayans. This queen is spending a casual afternoon running a barbed rope along her tongue. Check out the headdress of the man. It has a head on it! That must have been stinky!