We find ourselves this sunny day in
the middle of our mother’s heart.
London is the heart of England, and
England is the mother of our country, the good old USA. That’s what my tenth grade English teacher,
Mr. Moore, used to tell us: that no
matter where you traced your ancestry, the mother country of America is
England. He told us that since that
little misunderstanding of 1812, we had always been together—socially,
economically, militarily—in every way.
Only, we weren’t just parent and child; we were friends and allies. He said to watch events as we grew older, and
we would see that England and America would always be together, that we would
always be on the same side of the big issues.
When you think about it, Mr. Moore was right.
But the country is no longer called
England; nowadays it’s the U.K., the result of a forced “uniting” of England
with Scotland and Ireland (well, part of Ireland). With Scotland’s people voting soon on
separation, and the Irish not particularly endeared with the idea of being
united, who knows what the future holds?
Our mother may change her name again some day.
In any event, here we are in the
city from which much of the world was once administered—from North America to
Australia and New Zealand, to India and Africa; you know the saying: the sun never sets on the British
Empire. Much of the empire has apparently
moved here, because they say 300 languages are spoken on the streets of this
great city. We only have four days to
get a taste of the place, so let’s begin.
Tricia at the museum
Arriving at our apartment after
lunch, we hoofed it over to the gigantic British Museum to join the 5 million
annual visitors for a few hours. Opened
in 1759 following a massive gift by royal physician Hans Sloan, it’s a place
where one could spend many days absorbing the information; and you couldn’t
carefully examine the 8 million items in a lifetime. But we took a stab at it.
Ramesses II and friend
Like our Smithsonian, admission here
is free to the public, although they request a £5 donation. It was well worth it. We spend hours this afternoon hurrying
through the countless exhibits, covering all of human history from across the
globe. Every continent and every age
(OK, they left out Antarctica). Even one
of the statues from Easter Island. We
particularly enjoyed the displays from ancient Egypt: the giant himan-headed winged lions, the
statue of Nenkheftka, the colossal heads of Ramesses II and Amenhotep III, the
funeral displays and burial crypts—it just went on and on.
And the star attraction, in a glass
case, the Rosetta Stone, dating from 196 B.C. and discovered in 1799. Heiroglyphics, used for four thousand years
and then forgotten, had been undecipherable for a thousand years until this
decree by King Ptolemy III turned up.
With almost identical wording written in Greek, ancient Egyptian, and hieroglyphics,
it enabled scientists to break the code for the first time. It’s not a large rock, maybe four feet or so
tall, but it sure packed a punch.
The great stone
Not mentioned in the museum are some
of the controversies still raging about the right of the British to cart off
all these treasures when they dominated much of the planet. But who would bring up such unpleasantry in
one of the world’s great museums?
Dinner at Axis
In the evening we indulged ourselves
to a five-course meal at nearby fancy restaurant Axis at One Aldwych, at the
edge of the theater district. You really
should try it next time you are here.
Then we strolled the streets of London’s equivalent of Broadway ,past
Mama Mia! and War Horse and other shows.
It was a long day, running from Southeast Georgia to our mother’s heart.
Charlie & Tricia
©2014
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