On Monday we made a better effort to get up and out of the flat (probably because we had promised Guy that we would). The four of us started our day at the British Museum.
This museum is truly spectacular. First, they have enclosed the courtyard within a glass and steel bubble – apparently the largest enclosed courtyard in Europe – which creates a very awe-inspiring space. Second, they have some really famous stuff here. Third, it’s free!
I was happy to see the Rosetta Stone, which helped historians to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics (Guy was pleased to see that the main fellow was Champollion, a Frenchman). Then we went to the “Elgin marbles”, i.e. the Parthenon carvings that the British stole (oops, I mean saved) from the Greeks. The Brits are a tad sensitive on the subject and when I asked the guide about it, he quickly produced a brochure explaining why the sculptures deserved to stay in Britain. We had the audio guide which I thought was pretty good. I almost felt transported back 2500 years as I listened to the commentary.
We wandered through the museum afterwards, with unfortunately not enough time to see much of it. One highlight was a docent who had a “touch me” station where you could handle objects from the collection – a small Greek vase, a necklace made of dolphin teeth, etc. She even let us hold a stone tool that was 350,000 years old. I was quite excited about touching something that old until Lenny pointed out that every rock I’ve ever touched is older than that. What a geek.
The other highlight was seeing the mummies, including Cleopatra. We read about the mummification process. I bought Marina a souvenir button that says “I love my …” and a picture of a mummy. Ha.
We then met up with my friend David Pritchard, his wife Julia, and his daughter Emma for our one splurge meal of the trip. (Yes, as you may have guessed, I hocked my engagement ring to pay for it). It was called Maze, one of the restaurants of the famous British chef Gordon Ramsey (I know some of you think “famous British chef” is a weird phrase, but it is true). The food was excellent: beautiful presentation, delicious flavors, extremely attentive service. Guy, David and I used to work together, so we enjoyed catching up after a hiatus of a few years. David is now running OpenTable.com in Europe, and it was fun to hear about their progress.
After lunch we passed by the American embassy, which is an ugly Saarinen building on an otherwise beautiful square, made even more ugly by layers of concrete barriers and fences. We then visited the Marble Arch, which is on a little traffic island that you reach by a tunnel
We walked through Hyde Park back towards our flat, stopping to visit the relatively new Princess Diana memorial fountain. This was a subtle but impressive piece of architecture, with swooping forms that contained running water. The water started at the top and ran in opposite directions down both sides. Each side had different construction, coming out of the ground, going back low, having bumps in it, having air holes and turns, getting wider then narrower, with the water meeting again at the bottom.
We wandered through the Mews (narrow streets with rowhouses), stopped at a gorgeous chocolate shop, and ended back in the apartment for a rest before theatre.
Our play tonight was “39 Steps”, based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. We had rented the movie to see it before we came and we were astounded at how close the play followed the movie, with the major exception being that it was turned from a thriller into a comedy. There were four actors who played many roles, and they had a very clever way of using the props.
We went for dinner afterwards, which actually proved to be difficult since it was hard to find places still serving food after 10pm. We actually got evicted from one because Marina was underage – it seems you need to be 18 to eat a burger after 7pm in London. Anyway, we finally found a place, had a nice meal, and then said goodbye to Guy.
-- Donna
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