London, Part 2

Last Thursday night I had to attend a lecture at the British Museum for my class on the evolution of museums since ancient times, and this lecture was on that specific subject. It was part of a larger conference taking place in London last week and so the room was filled almost entirely with professors and such academics from all around, with a few graduate students. But first, since that wasn't until 6:30 pm, I went to London in the morning to do some more sightseeing, which was great. First stop was to Big Ben and Parliament, along with Westminster Abbey right beside them as I hadn't seen the Abbey last time and the others in daylight.


The last was of Parliament and Big Ben, and here's Westminster Abbey across the street. I didn't pay to go inside this time because I wanted to fit a lot of places in, and it was 15 pounds. Westminster Abbey started in 960 AD, but this building wasn't built until 1245 AD:


After that I went back on the tube to the Tower of London, and this time I've got a picture with myself in it. No one told me to smile, so I didn't.


The Tower started as just one of the buildings, the White Tower, in 1078 by William the Conqueror. Different kings added more and more to it until it became basically as we see it today in the late 1200's. It was a fortress, palace, and prison, complete with torture chambers. Here are the remains of the drawbridge over the moat:


And a closer look at the drawbridge:


And beside the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, which is often mistakenly called the London Bridge:


Again, the Tower cost money and I knew I wouldn't have time for everything I wanted to do so I didn't go in this time, but will some day. I went next to the Imperial War Museum on the recommendation of a friend, and it was well worth it.


There were so many authentic military vehicles and equipment inside that I can't post all the pictures, but here are a few favorites. First, an actual World War 2 German one-man submarine:


The casing of a US atomic bomb, identical to the Little Boy that was dropped on Hiroshima.


A German V-2 rocket (imagine this bad boy landing in your yard...):


There was a lot to see there, including exhibits on the British intelligence agencies and their actions in different wars. The Holocaust exhibit was... well, hard to explain, really. No pictures are allowed inside so I don't have any of it. Quotes from many German officers and politicians about the Jews were posted all over the walls. After that I knew I was almost out of time and had to leave, so while I saw everything, some of it was very fast.

By the time I got to the tube station next to the two museums I had left to go to, it was only 45 minutes before I had to meet my professor at the British museum so that we could go around and look at a couple of the exhibits for an hour before the lecture, so I didn't get to the Soane museum. Still, the British museum was definitely the best part of the day. Here's the entrance with a classic telephone booth outside:


There was so much to see inside that I'm glad I spent at least the 45 minutes inside to look at parts I knew I wouldn't see with my professor. She only planned on going through the ancient Greek and Enlightenment sections with us. First of all, the inside entrances to each area are also set up in ancient fashion:


Like I said, I really enjoyed the museum, especially because it had so many authentic artifacts. First of all, the actual Rosetta Stone:


Egyptian hieroglyphs:


An Egyptian sarcophagus:


Roman mosaics:


And now I've finally seen mummies---cross another thing off the life goal list. This one is one of the Cleopatras:


I don't know who this is.


Then it was on to the Roman section, which was smaller. Unfortunately I don't remember which Roman Emperor this was, but I think it was Emperor Septimius Severus who I wrote a paper about and presented on. He was good at conquering, but his wife essentially ran the political side of things.


After that I went down to meet my professor and tour the Greek and Enlightenment areas. The British Museum also has the ancient Nereid monument from almost 400 BC, taken from Lykia:


Here are some of the statues from one of the pediments of the Parthenon, built in the 5th century BC:


And more from the Parthenon:


Well believe me I have plenty more where these came from, but that's all I'll put up since I know it's a lot. The lecture was good, and afterward it seemed a little bit of a higher-society deal with the many wines and drinks that were served by extremely well dressed people. Thankfully they also had water. I had no idea what to do with my glass when I was done though so I just took it up to the counter in the corner and the lady gave me a look and then took it. After the lecture I went around the museum for a little longer before it closed. I didn't even see half of the museum and so I will definitely be going back again.

Iowa

It's been a while since I've had an update but there wasn't much to talk about between my last post and going home for Christmas. Going home was kind of a spur of the moment thing, as we originally had planned not to have me come home. But, after talking to my parents one day, we decided that we should try to get me home if we could find a cheap enough plane ticket. Obviously, since we hadn't planned on it, the plane tickets were quite expensive at the time. We looked and found a ticket for very cheap after a couple hours of searching! The plane was leaving in 12 hours from London and had open seats still, so maybe that contributed to the sudden drop in price (it dropped by about $700 compared to others!). Anyways, I got home and had a great time with my family and I am very, very glad I got to go home.

The only thing of note between my last post and Christmas was actually quite important. My good friend, Kingsley Henry, was baptized on Saturday, November 28! Here we are with Elder Lee and Elder Roberts:


The beautiful Iowa weather was there for me when I got home:


And another shot of the house with the kids on a snowhill in the background:


Andrew and the snow that went as high as the deck:


Sara getting ready to jump off the deck into the snow with Sage in the background:


Sage, Sara, and Andrew starting on our amazing tunnel under the snow:


And finally Christmas Day. Here Matt's trying to tan while talking to Mom, with Tamara, Sicily, Ronald, and Andrew in the background:


Sicily taking pictures with someone's camera with Dad and Tamara and the Christmas Tree in the background (and Andrew's knee in the bottom left):


I didn't have any pictures of Mark and Tiffany and their family unfortunately, and this is the only one where you can really see Sawyer. He always seems to be ducking behind something in the others and then I have about five that he took of himself so you either see just his forehead or just his mouth:


Also important: Iowa beat Georgia Tech in their BCS game and BYU stomped Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

The return trip to England didn't go so smoothly and involved spending a night in the Heathrow airport and then finally dragging my suitcase over a mile through the snow to my place, but I made it.

And now just because I like this picture, the view from the driveway:

Stonehenge and Winchester

Last Saturday, November 14, I accomplished one of my life goals that I never thought I'd actually get to accomplish until I was really old and actually saved up some money: I went to Stonehenge! I went with an international student group at the university and after Stonehenge we went to Winchester, the capital of England for part of the Middle Ages starting when King Alfred defeated a Viking invasion in the 900's.

Stonehenge sits on a hill and is very open with no trees in the immediate area, so it gets very, very windy. It happened that we went during a big storm that lasted a few days. I couldn't really keep my eyes open facing the wind and rain that felt like needles (even with my glasses) so this was the best picture I got of me:


And here are a few other pictures of Stonehenge from when the rain cleared a little but was still pretty windy:






After Stonehenge we headed to Winchester, which was nearby. It was originally a Roman walled city, and although we didn't see any Roman walls, the medieval walls were built directly where the original Roman walls had been and the medieval walls still remain in some parts:


The city has the ruins of two castles. This one, Wolvesey Castle, built in 1110 AD, was the home of the Bishop of nearby Winchester Cathedral and the medieval wall picture just before this one is right next to it:


Very close to Wolvesey Castle is Winchester Cathedral, the longest Gothic Cathedral in Europe and overall one of the biggest:


This is only part of the Cathedral, there's a lot more on the other side:


It was pretty impressive inside too:


One room was blocked off but they left an opening to take pictures through because it's pretty amazing. It's a small room with a few pews and has a few medieval wall drawings:




And the choir was practicing while I was there, so I got some video:


Not far away one of the medieval gates still stands:


And another gate still stands as well:


I mentioned that there are the ruins of two castles, and this is the other one, Winchester Castle, built in 1067 by William the Conqueror. This is all that remains of the castle that housed the monarchy:


And, you can walk a little ways inside:


The only medieval building not in ruins within this ancient walled city is the Great Hall, built (well, rebuilt) in 1222-1235 (Max is pictured as well):


Hanging on the wall is a replica of King Arthur's legendary Round Table, with the names of each of his knights on it and is built to the specifications of the myths. It was built in about 1275, but Henry VIII had it repainted in the 1500's and that is how it looks now:

King Arthur, if he actually existed, would have lived in the 500's.

London

This last weekend I finally made it to London after a month in England. I went with some friends, Dave Perry, Andrea Roundy, and Lindsay Shepard, and stayed with some others at their house in London. After dropping off our things at their house, it was dark when we got to London so we got some good night shots and just walked around and finally ended up in Chinatown where we ate dinner. The whole weekend was good, but we didn't get to go around to see many sights the three days I was there. Here are a few pictures of what we did and saw:

*Quick note: some of the pictures look blurry, but when you expand them they don't look blurry. For example, check out the before and after of the picture of Big Ben

First, the classic, identical rows of homes. I took this one because one of the homes was out of place; it was partially white:


After we dropped off our stuff, we left with Angus (whose place we stayed at) and it was dark when we got into London itself, but we got some good shots, like this one of Big Ben (you can even see that it was only 5:35, but already very dark):


After turning to the left of the last picture, we walked onto the bridge over the Thames and I got some good pictures of the Eye, the large ferris wheel in London:


We turned around and Angus took this picture of the rest of us in front of Big Ben (Me, Dave, Andrea, Lindsay). Not the clearest picture because we didn't use the tripod for it, but it works:


We kept going on the bridge past the Eye and ended up here:


It was mostly weird graffiti, but some of it was pretty cool and well done (and Lindsay and Angus pictured):


Andrea, Lindsay, Angus, and Dave walking through:


But here is my favorite:


Then we walked to Chinatown and had dinner:


Then we walked to Trafalgar Square, where a gay lesbian etc rally was going on:


And right behind where I took the last picture, the National Gallery, which we unfortunately didn't go in:


From there we walked to Buckingham Palace:


From there we walked to the Tube and went home. Saturday (Halloween) we got a little bit of daytime picture taking on our way to Brick Lane, a road of Indian restaurants where they have people out on the street trying to entice you to eat at their restaurant with better food deals. First, once out of the tube we walked past the Nauvoo Temple:


We met up with a couple other people, Hailey and Amanda, and stopped by a couple of small art galleries on the way to Brick Lane:


This gallery is the work of the artist who does the stuff for the band Gorillaz (Hailey and Amanda are in the back left looking at something and Dave is on the far right):


Almost at Brick Lane, we walked by a group performing for the holiday, which later marched up and down the street performing (I think it was Bedknobs and Broomsticks but I don't really know):



We had some pretty good Indian food at Brick Lane, then it was dark and we took the Tube and went close to Hyde Park and walked around in the area, first past Royal Albert Hall:


Then we walked into Hyde Park and took some more night shots over the river that runs through it, and you can see the Eye (it's the green lights near the middle right of the picture over the trees):


Dave:


Black and White Dave, Andrea, and me by Dave:


And I just like this picture:


And then we went back to Angus' house. The next day after church we walked around the V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum which is very close to the Hyde Park Church building. Here is a shot from a room with plaster casts of monuments and things from around Rome (mostly). The two biggest columns are casts of the monument to Trajan (identical, except one has the base cast as well), but the original statue was torn down by the Christians in the 16th century and replaced with a statue of St. Peter, unfortunately:


And then it was back to Reading and homework for me.