Next, the family arrived!
We went to the British Library and looked at an amazing manuscript exhibition. They had everything from the Magna Carta to a napkin with lyrics on it, written by John Lennon.
The British Museum was next. Or, as the locals refer to it, "Where we store all the stuff we've stolen from other countries."
Pretty cool cups.
The Rosetta Stone, inscription dating from 196 BCE. What was really awesome was when I returned in February with Magda for a paleography thing (more old manuscripts). Magda is a fellow medieval student here at Bristol; she's originally from Greece. Now, Magda is a smart cookie. But she had never heard of the Rosetta Stone. Apparently it's just not a big deal in Greece. Whaaat? So I took her to see it. I was explaining that the Rosetta Stone provided the key to reading Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, because it had the same text translated into three languages: the hieroglyphs, and, um, well, a couple others that I don't--
"Oh! It's in Demotic*! And Ancient Greek, too!" And then she started reading it. Blew. My. Mind.
*Demotic, by the way, is an Ancient Egyptian script. I had to look that up.
One of the elaborately decorated windows at Harrod's.
I'm not sure what this whimsical ship was doing there, but both Kyle and I instantly agreed that I had to have my picture taken in front of it.
A series of London skylines:
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