The World Museum

July 22nd, 2015

We began the day by grabbing our first double decker bus! Although it was only a couple stops we found some top-level seats and enjoyed the ride to get to the British Museum. As we got off, we were also very excited to see the red telephone booths, many of which are now being converted to wi-fi hotspots. We walked through a park to the British Museum. On the walk, we enjoyed the charming look of the city and parks. The British Museum is massive and the room you enter into is very extravagant in the size and light entering it. Apparently the rotunda you first enter is larger than a football field!

We immediately saw the Rosetta Stone, although barely with the layers of people trying to get a glimpse of it. We made our way through the Greek, Assyrian, and Egyptian rooms and explored the many incredible items this museum holds. It is interesting to see how when a country (Britain) has such power that it can take so many items, even with other countries trying to get them back. After a couple hours, we had only seen a small portion of the museum!

It was a beautiful day so we wanted to walk around and take in as much of the city as possible. We headed to the Oxford Circus and then made our way through the streets to the Picadilly Circus. The crowds in these shopping areas were incredible! 

We walked through St. James Park to get to Buckingham Palace and Anna was excited to see they were flying the flag which meant the queen was home. We were a bit disappointed to see the iconic guards were not in front, but behind the gates against the palace. After looking this up, we found out that this change was made at most sights with the guards due to terrorist threats. It was a bit disappointing that such a long-standing tradition was changed because of that. We made our way to 10 Downing Street to see the residence of the Prime Minister, although we could just barely see the building beyond the very guarded gates.

We continued through more parks and found Harrod’s department store and looked at the windows before heading in to see the Egyptian escalator (possibly the smallest escalator we have ever seen). We then took a side-trip to a train station? Oh, not just any train station, but the train station where Harry Potter himself gets to his train. Oh yes, platform 9 and 3/4! Anna was a tad more excited than Chuck, but it was neat nonetheless.

After a long day of sightseeing, we headed to George Inn, a 17th century pub that Charles Dickens apparently used to visit. However, the kitchen was closed so after a quick drink we decided it was time to find some street food and enjoy it with the views of the river. We also finally made our way toward the Tower Bridge, the oldest bridge in London over the Thames.