Recalled to London

We returned to London and began, per usual, at the hotel to drop our bags.

            From there, we walked to the City of London Museum, near a part of the old Roman walls. The exhibit showed the hundreds of items that had been excavated, which pointed to how much history London is sitting on top of. There were flint arrowheads, pieces of pottery, and skulls, human and animal alike. There are so many ancient societies resting under the current metropolis- it is truly astounding!

It's a clock. The cannons fire at the hour.

Next, we went to the British Museum, possibly so any void of my soul NOT yet filled with history could be jam packed with priceless ancient artifacts. We began with the oldest part of history, viewing many statues and the gigantic arm of a pharaoh (held out so that, if not for the sign that said ‘Do not touch’, I would have been tempted to fist bump it) before coming to probably the most recognizable object in the room- the Rosetta Stone. After gawking at it, we wandered the museum, staring at veritable mountains of Greek pottery, glass beads, coins, statuettes, combs, and assortments of precious metals and jewels. We passed parts of walls carved with intricate designs, as well as peering into the (closed) room showing objects from one of the ancient 7 wonders of the world, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. It was almost too much.

            We went from here to St. Paul’s for evensong. The inside of the church was amazing, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who, in the annoying manner of talented people, “only did architecture as a hobby”. The ceiling appeared to be mosaic, which is ridiculous, because the entire thing must have used every piece of mosaic tile in the country. The evensong itself was lovely, and we once again got to sit with the choir, which was even better.

 Afterwards, we headed to the Globe, stopping at the Globe Theater shop so I could purchase the entire thing, before taking our places at the edge of the stage. The play was As You Like It, performed brilliantly and hilariously by top-notch actors, to the point where I once again forgot I was standing.

            Once the play was over, we promptly went to the train station and took advantage of the fact that the Harry Potter trolley at King’s Cross station was deserted to take pictures before settling in for our overnight train.