England: London, Day 2

After another night at the Hootananny, I got up on Sunday for mass, where, I discovered, it was actually Palm Sunday! Oh how the time flies when you’re jet-setting (wistful look…). Anyway, I got some palms, which I fashioned into a little cross for traveling ease (it was my first one ever, and it wasn’t too bad… you could at least see that it was supposed to be a cross, which is something, I suppose). We planned to go to the British Museum next, but we were meeting Angela there after she went to do some personal exploring, so we wandered from Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Circus, a big shopping district (where, apparently, stores don’t open until the afternoon on Sundays, so we didn’t actually go in any), before meeting up with her. The British Museum is so cool! One part of your mind is thinking that it was, of course, wrong for the British Empire to steal all these things from their native places, but another part is so excited to be able to see artifacts from everywhere concentrated in one place! The first thing we saw was the Rosetta Stone – sweet! – and then lots of Egyptian artifacts. I was particularly interested in the pieces from the Ancient Near East (because I took a Myth in the Ancient Near East class last semester and had seen pictures of some of the pieces in my books) and in the Asian Art (because I also took an Asian Art course and got to see live and in person art I had studied, like the Shiva Nataraja!). I’m ALWAYS interested in Egyptian and Greek artifacts, and there were plenty to be seen. All in all, an excellent excursion, and free as well!!

Jess and I wanted to see the British Library, home to the Magna Carta and manuscripts of Jane Austen’s novels, among other things, so we went that way while the others set off to relax in Hyde Park. The library was indeed open, but, after running excitedly up the stairs to the manuscript room, we discovered that THIS particular room was open every day EXCEPT Sunday. A similar discovery met us downstairs in the Rare Books room, so we wandered a bit through the library, which is cool looking, and into the “Restoration” exhibit type thing, which was pretty lame. We finished off our trip by reading some children’s poetry (part of another exhibit) before heading off to meet the others at Hyde Park. On Sundays, Hyde Park is the home to Speaker’s Corner, where people get up on stepladders and tell everyone their opinions and feelings on subjects of their choice – when we got there, one man was discussing Islam, and when we left he was talking about how “there’s a difference between employment and work.” There were also some ladders with placards on them, for the usuals, I gathered, like the “Socialism” stepladder. We walked around the park, in what we realized later was the unattractive bit (we drove by the pretty part on our way to Oxford… curses!!), and got some ice cream (tiramisu for me, delicious!!!). The others let us know that they had gone elsewhere, so we decided to go to St. Paul’s, since everyone else didn’t particularly care about seeing it.

It’s so pretty! Even with scaffolding… the large white dome with the birds flying around it (feed the birds… tuppence a bag…), the impressive stairway in front, the lovely inside... We went in (for free, because it was Sunday and there was a service) and saw Wellington’s grave, which was cool. There were no pictures allowed, but I took a few stealthy hip shots of the gorgeous ceilings and arches (yes, yes I am a rebel, thanks for asking). We chilled on the steps for a minute, then saw a cup of fruit sitting on a pillar by some pigeons, so we took some “feed the birds” shots with that. Next we found a great statue of a man with goats! Finally we met up with the others, around dinner time, and spent the rest of the evening eating our traditional baguettes and brie. I had a nice heart-to-heart with the Denmark boys in my room, as well as with an American boy who had gone to Carnegie Mellon and had spent time in Galway. The next morning... Oxford!!