Day 2 - British Museum, Charles Dickens and the British Library

Second full day in England and things are going well. We all seem to have settled into a sleep pattern where by we go to sleep fairly early (9:00 or thereabouts) and wake up around 6 in the morning.

I've gotten my camera working, and unlike some fathers of mine i actually remembered to bring my USB cable, so if i can get them uploaded there should be some pictures attached to this report.

First one: There appears to be some strange hybrid of a snail and a cabbage slowly growing on or crawling up the wall outside our hotel room. I think it's a good thing the window doesn't open up, lest we be visited in the night by this foul creature (photo should be flipped right i think):



Anyway. Started the day with another very hearty breakfast. Kept an eye on the local news - things don't look for Labour here in the wake of their rout in the council elections and the loss of London to the Tories.

It looks like hard times for Gordon Brown, and i have to wonder if it's simply a case of whereever i go i bring political 'interesting times', to use the ancient Chinese euphemism.


Mum and Dad seemed fairly set on catching the Tube to our first visit of the day - until they saw the prices. At 4£ per person per ride it seemed a bit steep, so we quickly hunted down a taxi (so much easier to find than in Canberra) and paid 12£40p for the ride. Good value, no fuss.


We wanted to visit the Charles Dickens museum first up, but it didn't open until 11:00 am, so we trudged across to the British museum, taking in a very nice break for cappuccino at Russell Square on the way.

As you can see on the left, we saw some more squirrels. This one i took a picture of was obviously either very stupid or very hungry, as he was trying to eat the tree.

The British Museum was very impressive, although i didn't find it nearly as enjoyable as Westminster Abbey yesterday. I just don't think i'm a great person for museums. That being said, the range of material and subjects covered by this museum is amazing - it really is one of the best museums in the world (says the expert who has seen maybe 2 other museums in his life).

That's dad on the right standing in front of Hadrian's Wall. Or, to be more precise, a poster at the Museum advertising their Hadrian exhibition. Apparently we will be seeing the actual wall sometime this journey, so i think this just was dad being a smart-arse. Colour me surprised.

After the museum we wandered back to the Charles Dickens museum. It's located in the one house he lived in which has not been demolished. The building is 3 stories high and has a basement, and goes into surprising detail about his life and the influences upon his writing. It was all surprisingly well done - i think we ended up spending more than an hour there, which was unexpected.

Our final 'tourist attraction' was the British Library. It's located next to a railway station whose name escapes me, but it is housed in something that looks like a palace. The library looks positively plain by comparison.

We didn't do a very comprehensive tour as we were all pretty tired by this point. The main attraction was a 'Treasures of the British Library' exhibit, which included the Magna Carta, various well-preserved historical books and the piece of paper that the Beatles' song 'Help' was originally drafted on. All very interesting (especially the Beatles draft, as it had bits crossed out and altered, showing how close that song came to being very different).

We caught another taxi back to our hotel. This cabbie claimed to have never met a good Frenchman and generally put the fear of god into us about visiting France, so that was fun.

We're packing a lot into our days, which is pretty good, but very tiring. It's only 5:30 and i feel like i'm going to fall asleep if i stay sitting down much longer.