The Perks of Being in England: Four Museum Day

Today was absolutely crazy. We got to the British Museum right before it opened at 10:00 a.m. We browsed through the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian galleries and saw an exhibit on German World War I war medals. We didn't even attempt to see everything, because it was way too overwhelming.

Stefanie with the remaining pillar from the Temple of Artemis
which once stood in Turkey (a place Stefanie saw while there).
Stefanie also wrote her final essay for Turkey on this monument
and how it is located in England instead of Turkey.

We found an ancient piggy!

#centaurs #percyjackson

Stefanie with a Horus falcon

The Enlightenment gallery made us think of our
Intellectual History class!

If you think we weren't singing Aida songs when we were
in the Nubia section, then you don't know us at all.

Nicole found a Viking ducky!

The museum itself is beautiful!

#readyforbattle #teamviking

After escaping the British Museum, we went to the British Library. On our way, we stopped by King's Cross Train Station because it was connected to our tube station. We were hoping to get pictures at Platform 9 and 3/4 but the line was an hour long.

We found our own trolley...Nicole wanted to try to
run it into a wall and see if we found the passage
to Hogwarts.

A blessed moment of peace for the trolley
amongst SO MANY PEOPLE. (aka it's a miracle Stefanie
got this photo)

The architecture in the area is so magnificent!

The British Library has some incredible documents such as: Sylvia Plath's handwritten poetry, a copy of the Magna Carta, a Gutenburg Bible, a letter from Elizabeth I to her brother, Jane Austen's writing desk, Mozart's handwritten sheet music, and some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings. It was really nice after the heat of the British Museum because it's dimly lit and cold, but unfortunately you're not allowed to take pictures.

We had a nice little lunch at the Library cafe before heading out into the city again. (Also, museums with free wifi are the best. #thankyou)

Nicole's lunch: coronation chicken and Brown Bag crisps!

Then it was off to Trafalgar Square to find the National Gallery. There wasn't anything in particular that we wanted to see, so we just wandered around for about an hour. Nicole was super happy to see the Caravaggios, as that's one of her favorite painters. We were getting a little tired of the religion early European art and started going in circles, so we asked someone how to get to the Impressionism gallery, which we appreciated a bit more.

We found our way to the National Portrait Gallery, where Nicole just about had a heart attack she was so excited. (It was so incredible to see portraits that are on the covers of and in so many of the books I read in front of me, from Anne Boleyn's portrait that I put on my PowerPoint presentation last week to the only known portrait of Jane Austen.) We went through the entire collection, which ended with the Vivien Leigh photography gallery which was awesome.

Nicole with the iconic portrait of Anne Boleyn

The Tudor gallery is incredible!

We found our girl, Mary Queen of Scots! #reign

Nicole with the only known portrait of Jane Austen

Nicole might have freaked out over Mary Wollstonecraft's
portrait...a lot.

Queen Victoria!

After making some purchases at the gift shop, we found our way to Buckingham Palace. We got ice creams (with Cadbury flakes!) to eat as we walked through Green Park to the palace, but unfortunately it started to rain as soon as we reached it. We still got some necessary touristy photos though, before escaping the rain.

We came back to the hotel room and collapsed in the air conditioning. Four museums, one palace, seven tubes, and a lot of walking is a bit much for one day. When we finally could force ourselves to walk again, we went to an Italian restaurant called Taormina that's a minute walk from the hotel. It's Nicole's family's favorite restaurant in London and it was magical.