British Museum, here we come!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2012

Wow!  What an amazing day!!  … but to start from the beginning…

I managed to sleep all through the night, but poor Robert was up at 9:30 p.m. the first time, and then finally, and apparently for good, at 3:30 a.m.  I managed somehow to sleep in until 6 a.m. – and boy, did my sleep bank need that!  I still have a ways to go to catch up…

Sloane Square

Great Court - British Museum

We ate breakfast here at the flat – R had his oatmeal, and I picked up a box of museli, which, as a friend once described it, was barn droppings and wood shavings all rolled into one!  Pretty apt description!  We posted yesterday’s blog, and headed out about 8:30 a.m. for the British Museum.  Robert, the expert bus-finder, determined that with one bus only, we could make it all the way from the King’s Road (about half a block down from the flat) to within two blocks of the British Museum!  We were fortunate to be able to sit up on top of a double-decker bus all of the way there, and it was GREAT!

Got to the BM about five minutes early, but it was already open – they open the vestibules and the Great Court.  We bought a map and checked our coats (but not for long!) and headed to the Assyrian/Mesopotamian sections.  Well…I can only say that it was as close to freezing there – I mean, incredibly COLD – and we were INSIDE the building!  So, Robert, being the gentleman that he is, went back and got both of our coats, and we wore them a lot of the day! 

One of the main purposes of our museum trip has been to see the artifacts that were discovered at sites we visited last year in Turkey, as well as those sites we have yet to see (as in Iran or Syria, for instance).  We acquired a book called the Dictionaries of Civilization/Mesopotamian. 

I read the book earlier this year and, using colored stickies, I labeled those things that were in the British Museum, the Louvre, a museum in Berlin, one in Austria and several other smaller museums that we wanted to see.  So…in we went with our reference book.  I had actually tagged 132 specific artifacts that I wanted to see – and of those, 59 were at the BM.  I can very proudly say that after seven hours at the museum, we had found 51 of them.  Two others we know are on loan at the moment, and the remaining six may be contained in the one room of the collection that was closed for renovation…So!  Success, definitely!  I am going to have Robert include photos of some of our favorite pieces – hope you enjoy!

About noon we decided to take a break, and had lunch

Black Obelisk

in the Great Court.  We split a great ham and cheese baguette and R had their home-made minestrone soup, and I had a great home-made potato leek soup – YUM!  Then back to the artifacts!  We did take time to visit two of our other favorite exhibits – the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.

 

The BM is also doing a really wonderful show, which was right up our alley:  Ice Age Art.  I’m sure that everyone who knows us knows that we love to visit prehistoric caves for the paintings and drawings.  Well, this was really portable art – flutes, carved horns, etc. – Well…the first thing that we saw was the Lion Man.  If anyone has seen “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” about the cave at Chauvet, they will remember him.  I was SOOOO jazzed to see him!  It was such a treat!  And, while the special exhibit was fair to partly crowded, we were able to spend as much time looking at the exhibits as we wanted.  (Oh!  No photography allowed…shucks!)  Then, when we were just about out the door, I decided that I had to go back to the beginning to take just one last look at the Lion Man, as I was SO excited to see him.  But This time I went to the one side of him we hadn’t seen – and found that, much to my dismay, he was a reproduction!  I was SO bummed!!  That was the only piece in the place to be a reproduction, and of course, it would be my favorite.  Now we’re going to have to find the original – someplace in Germany – and see him there…oh well!  

Elgin Marbles

By the time we were through with the special exhibition, it was almost 5 p.m. and time to go.  We had, of course, once again gone wild in the BM Book Shop … which will necessitate a shipment home from here, certainly before we hit Easy Jet, or we’ll never get to Berlin!  But seriously – can you ever have too many books?  Especially when they’re about subjects you love?  And of course the answer is:  No!!

Rosetta Stone

Back to the bus stop, and once again, a front-row, top-deck seat back to Chelsea.  We lingered long enough for me to find my silk long johns (Jay, I think you suggested them?  BLESS YOU!) and out looking for a place for dinner.  I had hoped to return to a wonderful little Middle Eastern place near South Ken, but it wasn’t there…oh well!  So, instead we turned into a tiny Japanese restaurant and had a great meal!  I started with a couple pieces of ebi (shrimp) sushi; R had cucumber roll and two pieces of tuna sushi.  Then we both had their chicken teriyaki set-menu – which came complete with salad, soup, rice, vegetables and sliced oranges!  It was GREAT!  

Stopped to take a couple of pictures of the amazing Albert Bridge all lit up.  You can see the bridge from our flat, but I hadn’t realized – or had forgotten – that is painted in pastel colors!  Have you ever seen a pink bridge before?  We had not!  Then back to the flat to collapse from museum overload!

Not sure what is up for tomorrow.  A lot will depend on the weather.  If it rains, as is forecast, we will opt for another museum; if it doesn’t rain, we may try to make it out to Greenwich for the observatory and museum there!  We’ll see in the morning!

At any rate, Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, and thanks for joining us!

Much love,

m

xxx

On Albert Bridge

Albert Bridge

PS - Robert made the pictures too small yesterday; sorry about that, and thanks Katy for pointing it out!  All should be as "normal" today!

m