Thousands of Years of History, and a Trolly Stuck in a Wall....

There were very few things on the Big Guy's "must see" list for London.  I wanted to make it a point that we both got to see what we wanted.  The Big Guy said that he wanted to see the British Museum simply for the historical items inside.  While history isn't really my thing, it is without a doubt the thing that churns the Big Guy's butter.

(that sounded really dirty.  You get the idea.)

Our hotel was just a block away from the British Museum and because it was free--that's pretty hard not to schedule into your visit.  This same feeling was shared with the 800 school kids there for a field trip and the 3 bus loads of Chinese tourists.  

Our leisurly stroll through the museum turned into, "Quick!  Before the ______ tour comes through the door!"  We tried to say at least 1 room ahead of these groups.  It was pretty challenging to do, needless to say.  But we got to see...

The Rosetta Stone

Getting a photo of this thing was a test of

your street fighting skills.  Which I have none.

I tossed Minnesota nice out the window and

just moved my way up front.

Conversation between the Big Guy and myself:

BG:  You know that language software?  Rosetta Stone?
Me:  Yep
BG:  This is what it was named after! *big smile with body language that said, 'See, I taught you something today about history!'*
Me:  *rolling eyes*  REALLY?  I had NO IDEA!  

Honestly.  History may not be my forte, but I do know what the Rosetta Stone is.  

*sheesh*

Statue of Ramesses II

The Big Guy next to some stone sculpture

(by this point, they all looked alike)

Greek stuff

More Greek Stuff...

Greek stuff from the Parthenon...

(it was pretty cool....)

More Greek stuff from the Parthenon....

(I mean, think of how OLD this stuff is!  Seriously!)

Sculpture of Alexander the Great

Cleopatra's mummy

I did see this quote on the wall and found it very fitting for our trip--and life in general:

The same day we were here was the same day we went to the ice-cream place.  On the way back from Ice-Cream, and on our way to Harrod's, I made the Big Guy stop for a photo op at Platform 9 3/4 for my love of Harry Potter.

In 2004 when I visited, it was just a sign.  No trolly.
My guess is that hundreds of fans were running trollies into the wall, so they'd had enough, and attached a partial trolly to the wall.

No kidding, there was a line of tourists there with us, all taking photos.  It's a riot!

We made our way to Harrod's and found ourselves in the toy department (looking for Lego mini-figures from the Olympics for 2 very important boys--our nephews.  We had no luck finding them.).  While there, we discovered these in a glass case:

Dumbledor's Army

Letter from Lilly to Sirus

Harry's acceptance letter to Hogwarts

The envelope for the acceptance letter

Ron's "howler" from his mom

Hermione's purse from the final movie

We had doubts that they were real, as some of the letters had WB 2010 on the bottom.  Come to find out that last Christmas, Harrod's had a Harry Potter display that included many movie props and some replica's of the real thing.  We learned that the letters are a mix of real and props (sadly, not sure which).  The bag is THE bag from the final movies, The Deathly Hallows.

The Big Guy said to me as we were on the tube back to the hotel, "I could come back to London.  We'd need to bring friends, though.  That way those of us who like history can spend a full day at the museum, while those of you who like shopping can spend all day at Harrod's."

My reply?

DEAL!

So.  Who's with us?

Up next....Iceland!