Big breakfast! That’s what our day started with. A delicious feast of scrambled eggs and potato cakes for me and sausages and bacon added for Mum, Mikayla, Matt and Kelly. Followed by pancakes topped with nutella, lemon juice, sugar, maple syrup, cherries, bananas and raspberries, although not all together! Yum!
We then set off to The British Museum. It opened to the public in 1759 and more than 71000 objects from Sir Hans Sloane’s private collection were on display. With the exception of two World Wars, it has remained open ever since, and attendance has gone from 5,000 visitors per year to today’s 6 million. Entry is free, luckily. It would take many more than one visit to see everything there. Over the years there have been many additions and the museum celebrated it’s 250th anniversary in 2003. The building is spectacular, in size and design. It could be an exhibit in itself. Even if you aren’t interested in museums, it’s worth visiting all of them in London just to get a look at the buildings. One of my favourite parts of the building was the Great Court. The museum’s inner courtyard is enclosed (great for a rainy day) but lets in all the natural light.
We walked through Ancient Egypt first and saw a real mummy, actually we saw a few, for the first time. One was completely open, exposing the body inside. It was striking how a person who died 3000 years ago can be so well preserved, even having hair. Although what was also intriguing to me was how many people were taking photos and that the body is allowed to be exposed at all. I felt I had to respect this ancient person and not take photos, after all they are human beings.
We then went through Ancient Europe and finally clocks and watches. So many wonderful things to see and way too much the explain in detail. My favourite parts were all the jewelery throughout the exhibits, especially the Cartier pieces, AMAZING! I also loved seeing all the clocks and watches and how they have changed throughout the ages with growth in technology and fashion.
We saw The Rosetta Stone and got to touch a replica!. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the British Museum. The Stone is a broken part of a bigger stone slab. It has a message carved into it, written in written in two languages, Egyptian and Greek and three types of scripts (hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek). It is It was an important clue that helped experts learn to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. Even though it took experts something like 28 years to finish deciphering the code! A very important part of history.
At one point whilst walking around the museum Matt said to Mum, “when you visit Rome you have to go to the willy room!” Mum then turned to me, who hadn’t heard the first part and repeated that. I was a little unsure and asked Matt to repeat, thinking willy might be another one of the those words with different British and Australian meanings. Nope, willy means willy! So I asked for an explanation. A while ago people became prudish and decided to remove all the male private parts from all the statues. There is now a room, in a museum full of willys! Weird!
When we had all had enough museuming (new word for the dictionary) we headed home, stopping at Domali, a vegetarian/pescatarian restaurant, where I had the best vegetable pie I’ve ever had, again! Another fantastic day with Matt and Kelly, thanks guys!
Here We Come World 