Today’s events, again, were quite full, but not as full as were yesterday’s. To begin I woke up a little later than I would have liked, but taking clear advantage of the opportunity to rest, I thought it wise to sleep in, as tomorrow that luxury will be one I don’t have. I awoke fairly late, and watched some more of the TR series. I then got ready for the day and as I was about to leave and finish up, the cleaning lady came and I was grounded until she left so that I could finish my utilisation of the WC. When I did leave, I went to Ladbroke Grove and decided to go down and see the Natural History Museum, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum. I went to the former first, and was blown away by many of the things they had there, including and not limited to: the giant globe you enter through when going up the escalator to the Earth science section, or all the taxidermied species they kept there, such as giraffes, elephants, horses, even a blue whale (although I am not sure that it was a blue whale, still it was pretty impressive to be full size). I also was happy to see a real life sized animatronic tyrannosaurus rex, that roared and the whole bit. It was also impressive to see their evolutionary section, and their devotion to Charles Darwin. They actually had a section called the Darwin Centre, which houses over 22 million species preserved in pickled jars (I think that was the number anyhow) . It was quite a neat museum overall, and I spent nearly three or four hours there, and after having left there decided to head over to the Albert and Victoria Museum.
At that museum, I saw many interesting things, including a plaster cast of Trajan’s Column in Rome (which I am very eager to see the real one when I arrive there). Also they had an exhibit devoted to fashion, and I was somewhat amazed by a Victorian dress’s waste size. I also was impressed by all of the stuff they had from all the centuries, and they had a whole room full of Raphael’s paintings, though I am not sure they were the real ones, but they definitely had one that was of great interest to me. Though I forget the precise one it was, they had Raphael’s painting of some people consulting the Roman emperor on his throne, and it was very exciting for me to see that, because for one thing it was a huge painting and that always helps to impress. The other thing is that this was a happy thing to see because of my continuing love affair with Imperial Rome, and the Renaissance is becoming ever more alluring for me to see. So it was fun to see all of this. Between these two museums with the amount of time I spent at each, it was quite a lot to take in, but I plan to return, especially to the Victoria and Albert Museum soon. The other thing that was neat about the Natural History Museum was that it had fliers for the Charles Darwin house, and I had not even thought of seeing this before, but considering his contribution to the outlook of people toward our place in the world and to what we owe our position, I fell it necessary to discover the major source of this whilst I am here.
After all of this, I came home, and did not do much save to write a few things on the computer, including three journal entries. The sad part about being home is that I burned myself on the frying pan I was cooking the remainder of my salmon on, hopefully I won’t have left a scar, because it looks to be a big one if so. Other than that, my bloody internet went out again, and I got ready for the Dorset trip tomorrow, and cleaned my stuff as much as I could anyway, but having a cubic foot of room simply leaves one with two few options for how to do this effectively!