Finding Harry at the National Museum

Thursday, July 8
London, Day 3

Well, memory of exactly what we did every day is becoming a blur, but our photos tell me that on Thursday we went to the National Museum. We took it easy that morning, ate late, and returned to our room to call Sheila in Salisbury to confirm arrangements regarding visit there on the 10th. She seemed thrilled about it and agreed to meet our morning train and get us back to the station in time for the last one that night. On our way for the rest of the day, we stopped for lunch at the local pub and chatted with the Australian waitress a bit. We have noticed that most people who serve us at the hotel and restaurants are from elsewhere. She followed a boyfriend home to Engand and he is in school.
After checking the tube map we set out for the museum. Ooooh and aaaahhh!!! Free. Accessible. Remarkable artifacts and splendid exhibits.
We concentrated on the ancient Sumarian,
Greek, and Roman pieces on the first floor,









saw the Rosetta Stone,














and marvelled at the age, beauty and detail of the art.
However, I got a bit sad after awhile about something to do with the distruction that preceded these exhibits.

Many of the sculptures were torn from ancient ruins, or had been vandalized on site. Some important bits and pieces were missing from their body parts.
Still, a wonder.
After a tea break we went up to the rooms of ancient British finds. The Time Team had been busy!
One neat thing was the tile floor from one of the turrets we had visited at the Tower of London.















Another was that among some ivory carvings, I found Harry, the Viking mascot for Wexford Collegiate Scool for the Arts, which is where I work.
We ended our visit in the reading room, which was air conditioned and a blessed relief. It was really a very hot day!
I convinced Jan that the bus would be faster, but this time I was proved wrong. Just because a bus was at a street corner did not mean we could board it. So we gave chase and probably got half way to Piccadilly before we finally got on.

Jamie was waiting for us there and we walked to China Town to eat dinner - excellent food! - and had a great visit with him. He is working temp jobs and volunteering at the Shunt Yard theatre box office so he was able to plan to do the festivals for the summer, working or volunteering at many of them. Hope he has a blast! After dinner we walked back to Trafalgar Square to check out the Sadlers Wells installation called Slow Dance.
I knew there would be projected images because we had seen the technicians setting up three big screens on our first visit. However, I was hoping that there would be actual dancers as well. No such luck. Three synchronized films were being projected, each a single image of a dancer performing jumps and turns in various genres of dance, like ballet, modern and hip hop. After awhile one of the images would fade out to be replaced by different dancer and style. We could only watch for so long, but two things happened before we finally turned away. I offered my cane to a one-legged man in a wheelchair to assist him in standing at the rail above the square to watch the films. Also a young boy down in the square began to imitate some of the movement in the films. When we were done, we said goodnight to Jamie and headed for the hotel. We stopped back in at the neighborhood pub for one drink just before last call. Had to laugh. One tourist couple didn't take them seriously and ended up finishing their bottle of wine and beer out on the sidewalk. When they say 'closed' here, they mean it!