December 13, 2004

Westminster Abbey/Elgin Marbles

Today, our last full day in London, we went to Westminster Abbey and then to the British Museum to see the Elgin marbles.

Westminster Abbey is amazing. The most famous English Kings, Queens, scientists, poets and other impressive citizens are interred here. There are more amazing sculptures here than I have seen in any of my travels. Of course, photograph taking is banned there. I noticed that all the sites we've had to pay to see forbid the taking of photographs. That didn't ruin the experience for me but it would have nice after paying 15 dollars a head to get in, if I could have taken some pictures of Isaac Newton's statue, or Shakespeare's statue or Mary Queen of Scots effigy, etcetera.

After an overwhelming tour of Westminster we walked north to the British museum. There were two exhibits Jon wanted to show me. The first was the Rosetta stone. Pretty cool. But as cool as it was to see the Rosetta stone, the Elgin marbles were 10 times better. Of course, since this museum was free, I could take as many pictures as I wanted, which I'll download when we get home. I don't know how to describe them to you. They are the oldest sculptures I have ever seen, rescued from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin.

I was pretty pooped after absorbing all that info, so Jon and I came back to our home base. 10 minutes after we got back, Jon went off alone to play at apub quiz with Mark. As much as I wanted to go, I really needed to hang back. After all, I have packing to do. We are leaving tomorrow. We are going home. (sniff and hoorah!)

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