Look, it's a dead platypus!

After spending the rest of yesterday wandering around Bloomsbury, trying to get our bearings, eating Banofee Cheesecake, and watching Dr. Who, we decided to venture out to the British Museum today.

Let me tell you, the British Museum is AMAZING! I could have spent days in there. It was so very lovely. My mother, unfortunately, only made it about four hours. Below are some of the highlights:

In front of the museum

The Rosetta Stone

Impressively large books

Remains of a statue of Athena from the top of the Parthenon

One of the coolest teapots I have ever seen

My favorite galleries were the Parthenon gallery and the Enlightenment gallery. Each time I went to the Parthenon in Nashville and looked at the reproductions of the statues from the top of the Parthenon, I thought, "One day, I'm going to see these in real life." Today, that dream came true.

The Enlightenment gallery was great partially because it was located what used to be King George III's library. In addition to the artifacts, there were tons of books on loan from one of the major British libraries (I don't remember which one). They were all old and beautiful and made me really happy down deep inside. The statues in the gallery were also breath-taking, even more so than the statues in the other galleries. I don't know why, but they were impressive in a way that the larger, older statues weren't (not that those statues weren't also amazing.)

I also saw my first platypus. Unfortunately, it was dead. For some reason, the fact the first platypus that I ever saw was stuffed was strangely disappointing in a way that I didn't expect it to be. In fact, the dead platypus disturbed me more than the dead people in the mummny gallery. Perhaps it's because I was so fascinated by the was the mummies were decorated, I didn't stop to think that the mummies were actually dead people underneath. In fact, I enjoyed the mummy gallery quite a bit.

After the British Museum, we took our first bus ride to go see Kate Atkinson (author of Behind the Scenes at the Museum, as well as several other books) at the Kensington Central Library. In addition to reading from her book, When Will the Bad News End?, she spoke a lot about characters and structuring plot. She was both an engaging and informative speaker and I enjoyed her presentation very much.

Tomorrow, we're off to the V&A. I love London! (Except for getting hit on by drunk men on the buses. But that's another story for another post.)