By the way, I feel like I should chronicle the hostel experience, since it's entirely new to me and probably unfamiliar to a lot of you as well. There are 6 of us crammed in one room, co-ed, with a tiny sink and a decent amount of floor space. We're bunked together in these little cubible beds, I'm on one of the top bunks (woohoo) and everytime I climb down I'm afraid I'm going to kill myself. The bed itself is springy and not that comfortable, and continuing in the UK's adamant opposition to air conditioning, the room gets really stuffy and hot since air does not circulate. But you meet all sorts of interesting people from all over, and it's really a great experience so far... that is, I'm not miserable yet, haha. We'll wait and see how the Paris one is before I make a final determination.
We left our hostel again around 10 and went to the British Museum first. This is the largest
museum I think I've ever been to before, not even kidding. We got an audio tour with some 50-odd highlights, and after an hour and a half we'd seen maybe 20 before deciding to head out. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, which was really neat, along with really well-preserved corpses from ancient Egypt, an entire samurai armor outfit, the Royal game of Ur and the Oxus Treasure, amongst many other interesting treasures. We got lunch at a cute little cafe in the park right outside the museum, and then headed to the British Library. They had an interesting exhibition on an old Indian story, the name of which I forget. We also got to see one of the remaining original copies of the Magna Carta, and also some of the fair play notes of Beatles songs. Also of note was Virigina Woolf's original handwritten copy of Mrs. Dalloway, which was really exciting!Afterwards, we got back on the tube and went south a ways to get to Kensington Palace, where
William and Mary lived, along with several other later British kings and queens. We got to tour the State apartments which were quite impressive, and also see a collection of Princess Diana's dresses, all of which were fabulous. Kensington Park was also a lovely walk-through. Finally, we stopped at Harrod's on the way back, a designer department store with absolutely exorbitant prices. We spent like 15 minutes there before I realized that it was far too ridiculous for me to expect to buy anything there. So, we went to H&M instead :) where I got a lovely grey cardigan (I've been wanting one the whole time I was in Cambridge, so it's been a long time coming).So that about wraps up London, we have a little more time tomorrow before we leave, but the next time I update, je serais a Paris!!!! Or to translate for you anglophiles, I'll be in Paris :)
A demain!
2 comments:
its actually "je serai" :P
let me know how the hostel in paris goes! i'm searching around for one to stay in when i fly in, since i'll be there for a couple of nights before my program starts..
bah, another display of my excellent command of french. Although the pronounciation is the same, so i would have been ok :) and of course i will give you all the hostel details!
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