Jolly Good Time

WARNING: THIS IS OUR JOURNAL FOR OUR TRIP SO IT WILL BE QUITE LENGTHY! CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!

We had a night flight to London from DC on British Airways. The first class seats were actually recliners that made into beds then came the next rows of seats! Man, they were SO nice with LOTS of leg room and space between the seat next to you. They looked quite comfortable as well! We kept walking back to our row, still excited about our seats only to discover that on British Airways flights there is Upper, Middle, and LOWER class seating! We were in the LOWER class as you can imagine! :) They were not like the other seats we saw but had a TV on each seat, were quite comfortable AND came with socks, a pillow, eye mask, and a little toothbrush and a TINY tube of toothpaste! The socks were SO funny! They look like LONG soccer socks but once I put them on they were ankle socks! :) The flight was much better than any flight I have ever been on-very smooth and comfy seats. I was able to sleep a little, which was good because of the time difference (it was 9:30am London time and 4:30am VA time). We figured out the Underground (like the Subway) and got to our hotel, motel, Holiday Inn. (it was a hotel...just had to sing the song:)) Our phones have NO SERVICE in Europe which is LAME and at our hotel it was 3 pounds (which = abt $6 with the conversion) for 15 mins of internet use and 15 pounds for 24 hrs (which Tim thought was OBSURD since that is about how much we pay per month ($30 give or take). So, we felt as though we lived back in time when there was no internet and no cell phones! It is crazy how much we depend on them these days! We were SO tired once we reached our hotel that we crashed for a few hours (PS. they have no sheet on their beds! Only a fitted sheet and a comforter...weird!)

Then we headed off to see
On our way there we saw:






(Me in front of the British Museum )

Uh, you can't read it too well, maybe if you click on it and blow it up you'll be able to??? :)
Inside we saw:
This is the Rosetta Stone. I thought it was just going to be some rock with writing on it (which I guess technically it was:)) but it was actually really cool to see what the three different languages look like written and compare their sizes and wonder HOW IN THE WORLD they could chisel such tiny writing into a rock! I thought of it as sort of a caveman's version of the urim and thumim :) There are tons of glares but this was the best picture I could get because EVERYONE was crowded around it! And they need to come up with some glare-proof glass for that thing!
"Upper Half of Colossal Statue of Ramesses II of Granite (c. 1270 B.C)" Yes, it was colossal AKA HUGE! See how tiny the people look below it???
"Monumental Granite Scarab (c. 200 B.C.) This species of beetle (which reminds me of the one off of Aladdin:)) would burrow into the ground, then reappear- like the sun rising and setting, or dying and rebirth, a symbol of resurrection. Scarab amulets were placed on mummies' chests to protect the spirit's heart from acting impulsively."
I don't remember what this was called but I thought it was cool that they knew the sign for "I love you" way back then! :)
Correct me if I'm wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if this is where the brand "Nike" got it's name! And anyway, didn't they used to have wings on the sides of the shoes or something???
I wanted Tim to kind crop the picture so all you could see was my head but I couldn't quite get my head onto the cement slab without the rest of my body :)
This is a coffin! Crazy, huh!? I guess I better take good care of my camera, it could grow and eat me alive! :p
This looked like some sort of fancy rug. It was made entirely out of sand!
The building is HUGE and I mean ENORMOUS!!!
This is INSIDE the museum! There are a bunch of buildings all connected by a big glass roof at the top!
See? This is the roof...and those ity bity spots at the top are birds sitting on top! :)
This is the whole view of the front entrance of the museum. (There are actually many entrances...we went in a different one than we came out of)
This is what you see when you come out of the front entrance of the museum.

Well, I think that is all I will post for now. That way I will have something to do tomorrow while Tim is out and about again working on getting things ready for when the other students arrive. In case you are wondering, Tim is doing a study abroad in Spain and got an administrative assistant position (you had to be fluent in Spanish in order to apply...those missions sure do come in handy:)) which basically means he comes a week early and helps set up, is on call if any of the students need anything (things like if they get in trouble with the law they will call him and he will translate for them I guess???) and he gets room and board free (that's the best part!:)) Anyway, this week (we are in Spain now, not London anymore:)) he is helping the director with a bunch of things so I am stuck in the hotel...just me and my internet :) and a few books and TWO british channels (the rest are in Spanish, of course! :( )