Museum Adventures

So we got back from Spain the night before really late. I didn't get into my room until after 2 am and neither did Mom. This led to us meeting up at around 9. If it was sunny, we were going to go to the London Eye. If it was cloudy, we would head to the British Museum. Well, you can guess that it was cloudy (and still pretty cold) so we headed over to the British Museum.

We took the bus from my flat and rode it all the way to King's Cross so that I could show my mom St. Pancras Station (the gingerbread Neo-Gothic building) and St. Pancras Parish Church (the church that looks like a Greek temple with a spire). We stopped at the British Library because it was on the way and because it is really cool. Mom especially liked the Illuminated Manuscripts and Bibles from the Middle Ages. Then we got to the British Museum. First, we went to the Celtic and Roman British area. For those that don't know, in about 70 AD I think, the Roman Empire stretched all the way to Britain and that's when Hadrian's Wall (which I don't think I will get a chance to see) was built in Northern England. Anyway, most of the artifacts here were actually from the Anglo-Saxons which were groups of people from present day Germany and Denmark who sailed here and took over the Romans in 300 AD or so. They were here until 1000 AD when the Normans from France invaded. That's an incredibly short version of British history. So we saw a bunch of stuff from those three groups in the first area we went to. One of the most famous is some stuff from an Anglo-Saxon ship that was buried. Inside was a bunch of armor among other things. My favorite thing (and I think Mom's too) was the chess pieces they had (picture 1). They were carved out of wood and really awesome. I like how the King looks bug-eyed. We also saw some things from around the same time in Ireland.

We continued on and walked through a bunch more galleries that I had never been in (haven't made the tours of them yet). Like the Early Iraq and Early Roman and stuff. We saw a bunch of black and red-figure pots from Greece and Rome (picture 2 of Medusa, the snake headed lady). Mom really liked these. We also walked through the Greek/Roman Gallery where they had artifacts presented by daily activities, like farming and bathing and children. It was really interesting. In the Islamic Art gallery the glass pots that I really liked weren't there anymore but some new ones were which I also liked a lot. Mom really enjoyed some paintings from Iran (picture 3). They are really usual because just about all Islamic Art never represents humans. We sat down on a bench and ate lunch (PBJ sandwiches). We continued on to the North American Indian gallery where Mom saw something surprising. She did a paper about a guy who makes bowl like the Indians used to do but with contemporary themes (picture 4). I can't remember his name but she was really happy to see it. We looked at the Mezo-American Gallery again and I took a picture of the Turquoise Two-Headed Snake that is very famous. It is really beautiful (picture 5). We left shortly thereafter and walked down to a half-timbered house that survived the Great Fire of 1666 (picture 6). It was built around 1550. Very cool looking. It was kind of a mistake to do this because we were both incredibly tired by this time (from getting back so late) and the walking and waiting buses really drained all of our energy (at least it did for me). Plus it was cold and rainy. While we waited for the bus, we stopped in a Marks & Spencer shop and got some food. We both got deli sandwiches and a can of soup to eat for dinner.

We got to my flat after waiting forever on Oxford Street for a bus. We ate dinner and hung out some more. I walked Mom back to her hotel which, for lack of a better term, sucked. It was in a kind of shady area and her room was probably the smallest room I have ever seen. For those who saw "the bachelor pad" at Dad's apartment, it was about that small. You had to shuffle sideways between the bed and wall. Mom said she could barely get dressed in the bathroom after her shower because there was hardly enough room to bend over. Wow, what a place. I felt bad for leaving her there but we didn't have any other options. But, on the bright side, it was cheap (for London). I walked back to my flat and basically went to bed. I didn't fall asleep right away because I kept thinking about Mom leaving. I wasn't looking forward to it.

British Places

I made the sojourn back to the British Museum today. It was glorious. I also went went to a few other places of interest near it which were really fun. Lots of adventrues today.

So I went on another four tours of different galleries today at the British Museum and had another four awesome and interesting times. The first tour was of Ancient China. I arrived a few minutes late because I was up late (seems to be a habit for me now, a bad one at that) and woke up later than I wanted. Oh well. The tour started off with some Bronze vessels which were put into burial chambers and carried food and drink. They were really cool. Then I saw some lacquered things. Most of the things in the gallery were some wood which was then covered with a super thin layer of tree resin and then dried. Then another layer of tree resin and another dry. This happened over 20 times and that's how you get lacquered things. They are better than bronze because they don't deteriorate as much. There were also pottery tomb-figures from 700 AD. Thy were usually completely painted and much larger. They stood guard. All the bodies of the soldiers or priests or any other people were mass produced but the heads were all different. Efficient! Calligraphy was really important to China and they wrote on almost everything, pottery, paper, scrolls, armor, bones, etc. The guide said each character represents a meaning, not a sounds becuase there are lots of different dialects. Like 2 means the same thing to everyone but we say "two", the French say "duex", the Spanish say "dos", etc. The same goes for each Chinese character. I did not know that. My favorite thing was the statue of a green guy holding the scroll of bad deeds (picture 1).

have reliefs. One relief had a Chief'sThe next tour was of Mexico. The gallery for the Mexican stuff was deigned by a Mexican guy and a lot of stuff in it is on permanent loan from the Mexican government. There were happy lady masks from 800 AD in the Veracruz region. The women would be given hallucinogenics and then sacrificed so they were usually smiling when they died. The Maya built large temples and above the doors they would put reliefs about Gods or Kings. There was one relief with the King holding a flaming sword while his wife pulled a throny rope through her tongue as a blood-letting (picture 2). The blood would collect in a basket and the basket would be burned. Yup. The Mayans thought that the Earth was created from the God's blood so they gave their blood back through blood-letting and sacrifices. That doesn't make it any less gruesome. There was another relief with the Chief about to blood-let himself by stabbing his "most prized possessions" if you know what I mean. *shudder* There was a lot of stuff from the Aztecs as well. There were statues and figurines of Gods and other things. The most impressive thing to me was the mask made out of turquoise. It had teeth made out of bones and the eyes were made out of shells. Very creepy looking but still cool (picture 3).

The next tour was of Ancient Egypt. There was a Pre-Dynastic burial from 3300 BC. They would dig a hole in the sand and put the body in there with some of their posessions (picture 4). That was natural mummification, or complete preservation. The Egyptians wanted their bodies to be preserved because they thought that after they died, their spirit would need to get their body back to go to the Afterlife. That's why they artificially mummified people, to preserve their body. They needed a back-up plan if the body didn't get preserved so they made the coffins in the shape of their body (thus the human shaped sarcophogi). Those might not work either so they would have statues of themselves in the tomb too. Also, basically the only people mummified were rich (everyone else was still buried in the ground, like before) and they couldn't do work in the Afterlife so they hda statues of their servants made so they would have servants in the Afterlife. We saw the Book of the Dead. It is a collections of spells to help you in the afterlife. On the page I took a picture of, there is a guy getting his heart weighed in front of one of the gods (picture 5). The Egyptians thought that the heart guided everything you did (they actually threw out the brain during mummification, the only organ they didn't keep). I find that a kind of romantic notion and sort of like it. Anyway, they would have their heart weighed and if it weighed too much, a beast would eat it and, obviously, that wasn't good. If it was ok, you would get to meet Osiris and go to Eternal Rest. I liked the Egyptian tour a lot.

The last tour was of Assyrian Sculptures. The Assyrian Empire was from 1200-600 BC and was located in Iraq. There were these gate things that used to be at the doors to a Temple. They are of a lion-bird-man. Crazy looking. The main thing in the gallery was these reliefs that lined the Temple. The reliefs were of the many things that the King who built it did. They lined the hallway you had to walk through to get to the King. They were meant to humble anyone walking in to see the King. They used to have inscriptions in between the top and bottom but they were all the same and the archeaologist who discovered them, cut them out when he transported them here (picture 6). Depressing. There was a giant slab that was behind where the King sat. It had a picture of the King being blessed by the Gods. Everything used to be painted in bright colors too.

I forgot to mention that after the first two tours, I went outside the museum had a lunch of lunchmeat sandwiches, chips, and mandarin oranges. Delicious. I loved the oranges. The last tour ended and I decided to walk the 5-10 minutes to King's Cross and St. Pancras Stations. On the way, I passed by St. Pancras Parish Church (picture 7). It was built in the 1700's and modeled after a building in the Acropolis in Athens. A very different looking church I must say.

Also on the way was the British Library. I popped in for about an hour. It was so cool. There were letters between Jane Austen and her sister. I saw a real Gutenberg Bible (the first book made by printing press). There were the original sheets of paper that the Beatles wrote their song on. There was a handwritten copy of the War Requiem. The first folio (collection of his plays) by Shakespeare. There was a bunch of other stuff that was really neat as well. To go into the Reading Rooms, where all the sweet books are, you have become a member or something so I couldn't go in there.

I finally got to my real destination. St. Pancras Station is one of three great examples of Gothic architecture in London. The other two are the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Courts of Justice. I like them all a lot. St. Pancras was done in a Gingerbread House Gothic style I guess (picture 8). There was a lot of scaffolding unfortunately. Then, I went to King's Cross and made the obligatory pilgrimage to Platform 9 and 3/4 (picture 9). A German family took my picture (not a good picture, I will have to go back and get a better one sometime). I was going to take the Tube from there back to the flat. When I was waiting on the escalator , I saw a ton of people on it (picture 10). Before I got to the bottom though, sirens went off and the intercom said, "There has been an emergency, evacuate" which we all did. Turns out that the station was overcrowded so they made everyone leave (I heard this on the intercom outside). I walked to the next station over and by then, King's Cross was open again. Haha. Too weird. It was interesting riding the Tube at rush hour. I haven't done that in a while. Lots of people, very little space. I got back to the flat and made dinner. Now I am here basically.

See ya!

Tours (not the city in France)

I already told you all about my little sleeping adventure yesterday (sleeping from 7:30 to 11:30). Well that completely screwed up my sleeping (duhhh). So I ended up eating dinner at around midnight and then went on skype and talked to my mom, sister, and john until about 4 am. Then I went to bed again and woke up at 9. It was weird. Trust me. I had to shave today which wouldn't be newsworthy but when I shaved I left a goatee. Don't worry I shaved it off. I just wanted to see what it looked like. I kind of want one but I don't have the guts to keep it. We'll see what happens in the future.

So I got ready and walked over the to British Museum. The British Museum was started in 1753. It was the first public gallery ever. It was started by a guy named Sir Hans Sloane. He had over 80,000 things laying around his house so he decided to donate them after he died. Thus we have the British Museum. The museum offers a ton of tours. Some cost money but they offer a bunch of 40 minute tours on specific topics for free. The tours are done by volunteers but they are all very knowledgeable. Obviously, those are the ones I did. I think there are 13 different tours spread out over the day. I tackled four of them today. Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, Art of the Middle East, and Ancient Rome.

The Ancient Greece tour had the best tour guide. I never caught his name though. There was a pretty cute blond girl on the tour too. She was almost as tall as me. She was from Newcastle and seemed pretty nice. We talked during the breaks a little bit but that was all. On the tour, we saw a water holder (vase like thing) from 580 BC (picture 1 with cute blonde girl in front of it). It was the first Greek vase with the painter's name and the Gods' names that we know of. We also saw a vase with a picture of Achilles killing an amazon woman. We saw two different examples of pottery, black figure and red figure. Black figure is just painting a little bit black and then scrapping it away to make black figures (like on picture 1). Red figure is painting the whole pot black and then scrapping away the black to make red figures (picture 2). There was a big tomb made from a guy on the Turkish peninsula. The big part of the tour though was seeing the Parthenon sculptures which I already saw with my Art History class. The tour guide had a different spin on it though so it wasn't boring at all. I asked the tour guide after where to go in Greece after my program and he said "Athens, Delphi, and Crete". So there you have it.

The next tour I went on was about the Enlightenment and it took place in the King's Library. So called because originally, the room held all the stuff that King George II gave the country when he died. Now, it is an exhibit about the enlightenment period (17th and 18th century). The enlightenment was a time where people were discovering and challenging what people previously thought about the world, past and present. There was a lot of learning going on. There are a few different areas to the room. One area was natural history. Not what you think though. Like there was a tea set shaped like corn because corn was only discovered (in Europe) in the 1600's.There were bowls shaped like shells and paper collages of exotic flowers. They used to name fossils after Bible stories like some snail fossils were called "the devil's toenails" (middle of picture 3). Haha. There was an ax from 400,000 BC that was discovered under an Inn in London. During the enlightenment, people would go on "Grand Tours" and steal stuff from the sights and bring them back. That's where a lot of the stuff came from. There was also a ton of stuff from Captain Cook's voyages. My favorite piece was a club from Vancouver (picture 4). It was a club made by the Indians there probably used to kill fish or something but it has sea otters teeth on it and glass from Venice. That's how much the world shrunk, that an Indian tribe in Vancouver had Venetian glass. Sweet.

I had lunch out on the steps but soon after moved in because of all the people smoking out there. The next tour was Art of the Middle East. There was a qur'an from Spain or North Africa written in the 11th century. The calligraphy looked cool. The main art forms we saw were ceramics, metal work and calligraphy. We saw a ton of ceramics. There were plates and dishes from the 8th century. My favorite pieces of the tour was the glassware from 1150 which was gilded and then enameled, which is very tricky to do apparently (picture 5). They looked nice in the light. Another example of ceramics was a whole bunch of different tiles with different colors and textures. They would cover entire buildings with tiles. In India, they made a turtle out of a single piece of Jade. It was really big and super life like which is amazing because Jade is a really hard material (they had to use diamond tipped tools). We also saw examples of metalwork like some plates and a vase that had 20 or 30 tiny parakeets hammered out of it (picture 6). That must have taken a long time.

My last tour was Ancient Rome. It was shortest one but still had some good stuff. There was a head of the first Roman emperor, Augustus (picture 7). It was from Egypt. After Augustus took over, he sent out bigger than life statues of himself across the world to announce that people were now in the EMPIRE and he was EMPEROR. Some people who disagreed took off his head and buried it in front of their temple so that every time they entered their temple, they stepped on his head. Good thing they did that because now it is preserved. There was the Portland Vase (picture 8) which was from 5-25 AD. It took a lot of work by a bunch of people. They had to make the vase out of black material and then cover it and fire it again with the white. Then they had to scrape away the white. It was broken in 1900 but pieced back together. There was some armor made out of crocodile skin taken from a tribe in Africa that worshiped crocodiles. We also saw some silver dining plates and tea sets from 260 AD. When the Germanic tribes came and raided towns, people would bury their silver in the ground. Now we have it.

After all those tours, I was kind of wiped out so I walked back to the flat and worked on that last blog entry. Then I ate dinner and sat around and pretty soon here I am going to go to bed. That's all for my day I guess. I really liked the Museum and learned a lot today. Hopefully, I can go back soon for some other tours.

Bye!

Schoolhouse Rock

Well then. When I originally set up this blog, my aim was to update it everyday so as to keep the people who chose to read itthe utmost informed of my life here. I have not been living up to that and I am sorry. It would be easy for me to make excuses like I was sick or I was busy but there are no excuses really. Hopefully with my sickness almost over (I can feel it) and school starting in earnest I will better manage my time and keep this thing updated more. On the flip side, with only updating every other day or so you all get SUPER LONG posts to read, like this one will almost assuredly be.

*All the pictures along the side were taken at (or of) the Natural History Museum and the British Museum.*

To recap my Sunday, I slept for 18 out of a possible 24 hours. Then Sunday night (Monday morning) I slept from midnight to eight. So out of 32 hours, I slept for 26. That might be a world record or something. It was intense sleeping too, not much waking up and laying there or what have you. It was the down and out for the count kind of sleeping. So Monday we started our first day of class. My first class was entitled (I'm not kidding) Ethnology of Selected Culture Areas. Haha, what a weird name. My professor, Justin Lorentzen, said it sounded stupid too. He prefers to call it Sociology of London. We spent almost the entire class (all three hours of it...) asking him questions about London and his life and stuff. It was very interesting to hear his perspective on American movies and music and stuff. We also filled out a little sheet that was meant to help explore our stereotypes of British people and he would either debunk them or say that they were actually true. Like I said, it was an interesting class and should be fun. He has always lived in London and lives in Notting Hill right now with his wife and six year old son. He said his son's favorite song is "Umbrella" by Rhianna. Everyone in the class busted out laughing. In the class, we will be covering a bunch of different topics about London from its popular music to its history to the different areas, all sorts of things. We are even going to take a tour of the East End with Justin (he grew up there). It has changed significantly since he lived there though. It is now filled with immigrant Muslims and eastern Europeans. Very cool.

We had our Senior Seminar with Phil after that. The topic of our Senior Seminar is Ethics and Morals in Art. We spent half our class time talking about just group business and the other half we spent discussing what ethics actually is. Now I must say that I don't particularly enjoy that type of discussion. I just feel like there is no point really because, as Phil told us himself, "this question hasn't been answered for thousands of years and probably won't be for another few thousand years". Well if there is no answer then what's the point??? Oh well, I can deal with it. Our first reading assignment was reading a bunch of stories and making a decision. Like one was about a father separating conjoined twins and one died. So the question is if he should go to jail or not. Ugh. Again, I will deal. After that class, I went grocery shopping (a week's worth of groceries for £9!!!!) I am expert shopper. I was also broken in on the potato flakes diet ;-). I spent most of the rest of my night laying in my bed watching tv (I watched almost all of Bring It On, I am pathetic). I had a bad headache and was still kind of achy. I did get up to try and find a pub where they were playing the football (soccer) game with Rachelle and Peter but they weren't playing it anywhere. So I went back and watched tv and went to bed.

Today, I got up and was already feeling better. I didn't really have a headache but throat still hurt. Oh well. I went to take a shower but all the hot water was gone (I need to wake up earlier) so I only washed my hair. The first class was my Islam vs. The West class. The course is taught by a guy who was born in Iran but does not practice Islam. We took a bunch of notes and I learned a ton. It's really amazing how I could know absolutely nothing about something so huge in the world; there are over 1 billion Muslims. Anyway, I am going to learn a lot in this course and am kind of excited about it. I hope there aren't as many notes every time. My hand hurt.

I came back to the flats and had a PBJ sandwich and then went to the Natural History Museum with Peter, Kristina, and Vanessa. It was pretty cool. The building is amazing (picture 1) and the exhibits were nice. I guess I just wasn't really that interested when I was walking through. I was glad I went though, the museum is only 4 or 5 blocks from my flat and its free (FREEEEEE!!!). I did kind of tired by the end though. The second picture is of a sort of sculpture thing they had about different ideas on how the Earth (and parts of it) were formed. That is Poseidon I believe.

Next up was our Art History course. The teacher immediately whisked us off to the British Museum to the the Parthenon Frieze there (SO COOOOOOOL!!!). The outside of the British Museum is picture 3 by the way. We were leaving the place where our class was to head to the tube and a girl got hit by a car. The car wasn't going that fast (thank god) but it was a very crazy moment. The light had just changed from green to red for the cars, the car didn't stop, and the girl went out in the traffic and man, crazy. It turns out that she was apparently ok, just a little shaken up. Anyway, we all got to the Museum and on the way to the Friezes and we walked by the Rosetta Stone! Yeah, you know, the thing that deciphered all heiroglyphics... Man, so sweet. It's picture 4 by the way. So then we went to the Parthenon Friezes. Some guy basically stole them from the Parthenon site a long time ago and boy did he steal a lot. He took the whole Southern Frieze, its the length of the long side of the Parthenon. Our professor is insanely smart and she walked us through all the details of the friezes and other marble things from the Parthenon. Very cool and agian, I learned a lot. The Friezes are picture 5.

We left the Museum and I went back to the flat. We had a big FIE get together thing where everyone in FIE came together and hung out. There was free beer (uh oh) and free appetizer. Later on in the evening there was a lot of dancing (mostly caused by the booze, I believe). I had a couple beers and danced but I came back and talked about Spring Break plans with Vanessa. It appears we are the only two without plans at the moment. More on that later (no decisions made and I don't want to ruin the surprise, if there was one).

I think I just wrote a novel... Thanks for reading and have fun everyone! Maybe an update tomorrow ;-)