Huff-Puff, Huff-Puff, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch

This was kind of our last day doing tourist stuff in London. Tomorrow we’ll still be here, but we’ll be taking the train out to Cambridge.

But… for today: Our plan was to return to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The design and construction of this church took 40 years; it has the second largest dome in the world (the dome is lead covered wood and weighs 63,000 tons). Last year when we visited St. Paul’s the majesty was almost overwhelming. Photography is not allowed inside, so it gave us a chance to just sit and absorb. It’s a beautiful place.

Climbing to the top of the dome. Last year, while Patrick climbed to the top, Amber and I stopped at the first level of the climb – called the Whispering Gallery. Our plan this year was to go all the way – 528 steps up… and another 528 steps down. (For folks on the Centralia College campus, that means going up to the third floor of NSC *and* back down, about 10 times.)

And I can proudly say: WE MADE IT! However, the church was a madhouse. The steps up to the top open at 9:30 a.m. and we got there around 10:30. There were tourist groups EVERYWHERE. They seemed to be mostly teenage boys speaking German. It was pretty crazy. There were church personnel making sure only a certain number of people climbed up at any time. Even the very top was crowded. But like I said – we made it! I asked one of the employees at the top if she was going to be there all day and she replied “I don’t think so, I think I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.” Apparently all the young gentlemen were getting to her too. The climb to the top spiraled up and up and up and got more and more narrow the higher we went. We started on nice wide wooden steps but ended on narrow concrete steps and I had to bend over to get up the last few steps. We’d read notices about claustrophobia and I could see why. The view from the top was pretty neat, but the weather was not quite as perfect as it had been in 2010. The steps back down spiraled around and around again and I was actually getting a bit dizzy! By the time we got to the bottom my left knee was not happy and Amber’s feet were hurting. Of course, Patrick was ready to go for a jog.

So what did we do next? We bought lunch at the local Mark and Spencers and ate on the steps to St. Pauls. I had a large container of mixed fruit and some kind of “fusion” sushi. Stick with the normal sushi, folks.

Of course, since we were tired, we headed back to the British Museum to see if we could find the rest of the “100 objects” that we’d missed the day before. Of all the objects that were supposed to be on display, we found all but one. And even in the hall where “that one” was supposed to be, there was an empty display case – so we’re claiming that we found 100% of the find-able objects. Pretty cool.

We got back to our apartment around 3:00 and I got another veggie burger with fries. Heavy on the ketchup please. Amber’s got a little pepperoni pizza in the oven and even though it’s early, we’re done for the day. Whew. Where’s the Advil?

My veggie burger place

 

 

100 Objects – The British Museum

Today is Monday, and we headed in to London for the day. First stop? Cornelissen art supply store, established in 1855. Very tiny place with wide deep drawers for almost everything. Fun to look, but the prices? Yeow. They did have large jars of powdered pigments – I’m guessing they can custom mix paints?

After that it was about 5 hours straight at the British Museum.  And yes, we did not see it all. We decided we’d see how many of the famous “100 objects” we could find. Some are not available to the public, but we did our best. At a quick guess, we found and photographed about 70 of the 90-ish objects that were available. It was a bit like a scavenger hunt, but luckily we had maps. Amber would map out a route and find things for us; Patrick and I would photograph.  For the day, Patrick took almost 400 pictures and I had over 400.

It’s hard to pick out which pictures to put on this blog… things you’d be familiar with, things I like, or odd/different things? I’ll add a gallery of images at the end of this post.

We also had lunch at the museum – this time a 16 oz. bottle of coke was 2 pounds – or about $3.20.  Now that may sound like a lot, but since the museum was FREE, it seems only fair.

After the museum we got on the tube and headed home. We decided to go across the street to (what I call) The Falafel Store and get some little pizzas we had seen on their menu. But they didn’t have them any more! So, poor me, I had to suffer with a nice veggie burger and fries.

We’ve been back in our apartment for a couple of hours now, swapping pictures, reading up on tomorrow’s itinerary, etc. Amber and Patrick have already headed in to bed, but I’m trying to stay up a bit since once again last night I was up from midnight to 4:00 a.m.  I’m sure hoping that I can sleep tonight!

 

The British Museum

That’s it. This is all we have scheduled for our entire day. Last year we went here with the idea that’d we’d breeze through it in 30 minutes. Three hours later we hadn’t even walked through the entire place – let alone looked at things. Today it’s All-Museum-All-Day.

Some quotes about the British Museum: 
“THE Chronicle of Western Civilization”
“The oldest public museum in the world”
“Over 8,000,000 objects in the collections”

While getting ready for the trip I ran across an incredible series of BBC radio broadcasts:  A History of the World in 100 Objects.  Unless an object is put away for conservation, all these objects are on display in the British Museum. These are things you’ve heard about such as the Clovis Spear Point, the Flood Tablet, the Rosetta Stone, the Lothair Crystal, Hoa Hakananai’a Easter Island statue, Pieces of Eight, Ship’s Chronometer from HMS Beagle, Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’, and even a Credit Card.

If you want to see the 100 objects, listen to podcasts (15 minutes each) and learn more, go here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/british-museum-objects/