These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Yesterday was Saturday, and my roommates went to go see a matinee production of The Sound of Music. The tickets were too pricey for me, and I've already seen the movie a million times, so I begged off. So that left me on my own in London for the first time, with a Saturday afternoon to myself. What did I do with my time? I went to the British Museum.

The British Museum has some of the most amazing archaeological treasures in the world. The museum has collections from almost every culture in almost every time period, from the classical Greeks and Romans to the ancient Celts to twentieth century France. Their collection of Egyptian antiquities alone is mind-blowing; they even have the Rosetta stone. I wandered around dazedly amongst the Asian tourists, pausing to stare at this and stare at that. I had already been to the Museum before (in April), so I was free to look at collections that I wanted to look at, and at my own pace.

Here are some of the things that I thought were really cool:
Lindlow Man: the body of a man who had died over 2,000 years ago; he had been sacrificed to the Druids and his body was found, remarkably preserved, in a peat bog. Creepy but cool.
The Queen of the Night: A beautiful stone relief of an unknown Babylonian goddess (or demoness).
Balawat Gates: Reconstruction of a giant set of gates from an Assyrian fortress.

Basically, I gorged myself on amazing artifacts until I developed a headache. Maybe it was the information overload or the crush of tourists, but I left the museum exhausted after four heady hours, and walked the fifteen minutes back to my apartment (Can you believe it's so close??).

My first Saturday night here in London involved going out with my roommates for pizza, and then heading to the local pub. Pizza and beer after a long day at the museum- you can't beat that. God bless Americans.