By the way, you might want to get comfy--this is a long post.
The first thing we did was buy bus/underground passes. Well, that's a lie--the first thing we did was buy coffee to wake us up. But then we bought our Oyster cards (why they call them that, I don't know), which work like a pay-as-you-go discount transportation card. They were really convenient because we only had to swipe them to get into the underground. Taking the underground was really cool for me. You have to go down something like 150 feet underground in these huge elevators--you can take the stairs, but there are all these signs telling you, basically, not to because it's such a ridiculous climb. So anyway, we took the tube to Russell Square, which is really near the British Museum. We walked through the square and found the museum pretty easily, being the humongous building that it is.
Okay, so the British Museum. Can I just say "wow"? It has to be the single coolest museum I've ever been to. And it's free! The Great Court in the middle is beyond amazing. It's this enormous round room with a glass ceiling and a another huge enclosed room in the middle. I got some pictures of it, but I'm not sure they can do it justice. I went through the Enlightenment Gallery first, which is an exhibit that focuses on the beginnings of collecting and museums in general, and the British Museum in particular. I have to do a small presentation about the Enlightenment Gallery this Thursday in my museum class, so now I can say I've been there first hand. And it was really incredible. There were so many artifacts and books and statues from so many different cultures that I didn't even know where to start. That one gallery alone was so huge, it took me an hour to go through it, and I could have spent more time there.
After I'd explored the first floor of the museum, I met back up with Valentina and Sarah and we walked to London's Chinatown for lunch. Then we were going to split up for a few hours, and I had been planning to go back to the museum to see the rest of it. But then I decided that since it was my first trip to London, I wanted to explore a little more of the city instead of just seeing the museum. So I put my museum-exploration on a temporary hiatus until I go back to London a second time (probably in a week or two) and went walking around London with Valentina instead. And I'm really glad I did, because London is awesome! We saw Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circle (I just love saying that), Regent Street with all the high-end shopping, the London Eye (not up close, but I saw the top of it peeking up from behind a building), and tons and tons of really cool architecture. We were going to see Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, but we ran out of time, so I'll see those next time. I took tons and tons and tons of pictures--I love my digital camera. I didn't even care that I looked like a total tourist because tons of other people were doing the same thing.
London is great, but it's super crowded! There were huge throngs of people just about every street we went down. It never really bothered me that much except once when we briefly went in Topshop, which is a trendy clothing store. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people crammed into that place. Granted, it's a huge store of three floors, but still! Everywhere I turned there were just walls of people, and at any given point at least three people wanted to be standing in the exact same spot I was standing in. It was crazy.
Everything's really expensive in London too. Even just a simple t-shirt from a store would be 30 or 40 pounds (that's 60 or 80 bucks for me!), and a tiny cup of soda was one pound-fifty. And I was also surprised at how early shops close even in a big city like London. As soon as 5:00 rolled around, lots of stores closed up, and I noticed the museum closed at 5:30 too. (I swung back by the museum to pick up a guide-book so I can a) have it for my presentation and b) plan my next trip there.)
Around 5:30 we headed to Covent Garden, an area in London with lots of shops and cafes, to meet back up with Sarah. We got another round of coffees and sat in an indoor courtyard type of thing. There was a guy singing opera for a restaurant nearby, so we got to listen to him a bit too. Then we decided that we should probably start heading back since it would take us a while to get home. So we took the tube back to Victoria and got the 7:03 train to Canterbury.
Once we got back to Canterbury, we made a quick stop at Tescoe's (the supermarket in town) and caught the bus back to campus. Then we had dinner, for which Helen joined us. After that, I had a cup of tea, came back to my room, and here I am!
And here are all the pictures of my awesome day! (The glass over some of the displays in the museum really messed with the pictures, but I think they're still fun to look at.)
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| British Museum |
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| London |
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