Day Two 4/24
We woke up at 07:00 and had free breakfast at the hotel. It was very hearty. It was a good way for us to start the day. We started out on our first official day of tourism. It was time to put all the care of work behind us and start enjoying our nice long vacation.
We started our day with the British Museum. We could spend days in there but we just spent a few hours. It's amazing to think about how old some of those artifacts truly are. Their Egyptian collection is outstanding. Steve had already seen a lot of the items from his previous trip, so we were able to just go see most of the stuff that Angie was interested in.
They had moved the Rosetta
stone. It used to be right at the entrance of the Museum, but now that area is
empty. The stone is in it's own wing of the museum now. The Rosetta stone is
originally from Sais around 196 BC.
The fragment of a dark hard-stone stela has recently been conserved, with a patch at the lower left corner being left uncleaned showing layers of wax and white infill designed to make the text more legible. The Stone was for many years fitted into a metal cradle for display, the marks from which can still be seen on the sides. The front of the stela is inscribed in the three scripts, but the back is only roughly worked and would have been placed against a wall.
There was a really neat display called
the Roodloft. The main structure is of Netherlandish marble; the ribs of the
vaulting are of Caen stone; the figure sculpture and decoration are of
alabaster (partly English). The Roodloft, which was built across the choir of
the Gothic cathedral in ‘s-Herogenbosh, in imitation of the Roodloft (now
destroyed) in Antwerp Cathedral, was erected in 1610-1613 under the supervision
of the Coenraed van Norenberch.
We saw the statue of Ramesses II. This colossal statue was of granite made in the Nineteenth Dynasty, about 1270 BC and is from Thebes. Ramesses II erected more statues on a colossal scale than any other king before or after him. Among the finest of these were those situated in his mortuary temple, known as the Ramesseum, in western Thebes, of which this piece is one. It comes from a seated statue, one of a pair set up in the temple. It is remarkable for having been made of granite of two colors, which was deliberately worked so as to draw a distinction between the head and body of the king.
There is an incredible temple
that really stands out in this large and empty room. Last time Steve was here he remembered this to be in a very
crowded room. It really makes it stand
out without anything else in the room.
What would a trip to a museum
be without the token picture of the obelisk and hieroglyphs?
After the British Museum, we went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and the attached planetarium.
The wax museum is pretty neat; the figures are incredibly realistic. If you didn't know better you would think they were real. Well at least from a few feet away. Steve had his picture taken with Jean Luc Picard and Angie had hers taken with Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson.
The planetarium was okay;
nothing special. They have a star show that started out pretty neat, but we
were both so tired that we fell asleep. Was this jet lag catching up with us?
We stopped and had pizza for lunch. After we finished eating lunch we took the Original London bus tour, which was pretty informative. It was a free tour from purchasing the London Pass.
Since we were in London, we decided to see a musical and we got tickets. We had about 1-½ hours before the show, so it was time to hunt down dinner. What else do people from San Diego eat when they are in London? Yes, you guessed it. Mexican food! We ate at a restaurant called Chiquito, which reminded us of El Torrito. The food was ok. The service was horrible. So if you are in a hurry, make sure you tell them to bring the bill when you get your food.
After dinner, we headed over to the musical. We saw "Witches of Eastwick" at the Prince of Wales Theatre. It was excellent. It was really nice to see a play that we had not heard anything about, except for seeing the movie it was based on. The subject matter is really not for children though; we recommend it for mature audiences only. There are some rather risqué jokes throughout the performance.
One of the three actresses was Lucie Arnaz from the good ole' USA. She was in The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond, as well as the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The staging was quite imaginative. At one point, the three women fly through the air up and over the audience! They threw red metallic paper hearts. This was really cool and we felt lucky to save some as souvenirs when they floated down from the air above us.
After the musical we headed back to the hotel.