Back in London

Today I went off on my own for a bit, saw St. Paul's Cathedral (it was a bit pricey to enter, and they didn't allow photography, so I passed, but the outside was impressive) and toured the British Museum.

Person:

I finally got to spend some time with Pat's roommate Rebecca today (she's been working all week, and Pat and I have been out in the evenings). She is a teacher, and just went on Spring Break, so she's doing great. :-) She's an ex patriot from Bermuda, having lived in the UK for around four years. It's technically her flat that I'm staying in, and Pat is subletting.

Place:

For a few hundred years the British built one of the biggest empires the world has ever seen. During this time, they stole artifacts from all over the world and assembled them in London at the British Museum. World War II brought about the end of the British Empire, but the artifacts remain, and now constitute what many consider the greatest collection of ancient art in the world. It was absolutely stunning to be able to walk through three of the world's greatest civilizations inside of an hour (I spent most of my time in the collections from Egypt, Assyria, and Greece).

The Rosetta Stone is the crown jewel of the museum. This stone was found in 1799, and has the same inscription in three languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic (a newer Egyptian writing system), and (most importantly) Ancient Greek. Because the same thing was written in each language, the stone allowed Archeologists to decode hieroglyphics for the first time. Without this stone, we would know hardly anything of what we currently know about Ancient Egypt.
The Assyrians were known for being particularly vicious, and when not torturing and enslaving their enemies they slaked their blood thirst by sport hunting captive lions (Dick Cheney, eat your heart out). This wall carving depicts a defeated lioness, her face twisted in pain and rage, still trying to walk and defend herself despite having been impaled by an arrow. She rages against her fading strength, much like the dying Assyrian Empire.My favorite thing in the museum were the statues that had been chipped from the Parthenon in Greece. The East Pediment (where the pictured statues came from) originally depicted the birth of Athena. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, and was born fully grown directly from Zeus's head. In this statue, we see Dionysus holding a cup of wine, drunkenly oblivious to the amazing event, while the goddesses Hebe and Demeter freak out next to him. The older gods' reactions to the birth of Athena represent the baser parts of human nature (vanity, fear, drunkenness) and how inadequate they are in the presence of wisdom. The Greeks prided themselves on the wisdom and civility they brought to the world.

Food:

We ate dinner at a place called Wagamama (that's right, I've eaten at both Wannaburger and Wagamama so far). It had all kinds of asian food, served in a cafeteria atmosphere (long, shared tables). The food was fantastic though; I had a tiger prawn and vegetable curry with sticky rice. The highlight was the yasai gyoza (vegetable pot stickers) we had as a starter.