A Tale of the Day

Once upon a time, two people from Jennings got on a big, two-decker red bus in London and rode to Museum Street where they walked one block over to a really, really big building

called the British Museum which has been there for hundreds of years and has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.  They got in the line with a bunch of other people and walked through security.  They must have looked really innocent because they breezed through security very, very fast and soon got to walk up some steps to the main door and into a large area with a lot of light coming through a dome high up in the air. 

Being really good map readers, they found a magic lift which transported them to the third level where many treasures lay in store.  They saw urns and mummies, and urns and tools and jewelry and

money and sarcophaguses and gold stuff and marble statues and things that were really, really old like thousands of years.  By the time they took a break for a small lunch, they had gone back thousands of years in the British Isles, Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt.

After lunch, they set off to find all the things that were listed as DO NOT MISS!!!  They found the

Rosetta Stone but they could not really make out much what it was saying.  They found the carvings from the top of the Parthenon, a statue from the Easter Islands,

and an ivory mask from Africa that was really a pendant and not what they would think of as a

mask.  They found the most famous chess set in the world,

but since it was in a glass case, they could not play with it.  They found samurai armor way up on the fifth floor close to the exhibit of the tea house from Japan.  Down in the sub-basement, they found some tomb figures.  They also found a whole lot of other interesting things that did not make it on the list.

Klep was particularly thrilled to find the wonderful Parthenon exhibit. 

He learned more about it here in the museum where Lord Elgin brought all his treasures  than he found out when he visited the Acropolis in Athens last fall.  Probably the only reason these treasures have survived is because they were moved out of Greece.  Now the Greek government is complaining that they should be returned to them.  Klep thinks they should stay right where they are.

The last room they found was a room called The Enlightenment Room or the reading room. 

In this wonderful place, a person could find something like or about everything that is in the museum.  Just the room itself was a delight from the oak floors to the high paneled and decorated ceilings.  The walls are lined with glassed in shelving holding treasures from around the world and back through time.  Statues are placed along the great hall like structure.

  This structure was completed in 1828 to house the collection of king George III.  He was better at collecting things than he was at keeping colonies.  Anyway, both Barbara and Klep really, really liked that room.

Since they had diligently pursued things of the mind for hours on end, the two old people rewarded themselves with afternoon tea in the Great Court Restaurant under the dome.  They sipped delicious tea and dined on savory sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and more sweets than anyone could imagine!

Tired and fed, they walked back to the bus stop and caught the #55 big red bus back to their hotel where they put their tired feet up and watched the rest of the day slip away.