This morning Amanda and I woke up early to head to Kings Cross Station to get some pictures at none other than Platform 9 3/4. We took some pictures, had a little spaz session, and were on our way. Or we thought we were. We were able to find a fictional platform, but not the real Eurostar one where we were supposed to be: typical us. After asking several people for help (all of whom asked us if we were looking for Platform 9 3/4, I might add) we finally found our group.
We then went to the London Library which was extremely cool. You have to apply for a pass to check books out there, and in addition to 5 floors of awesome, it also houses the Kings Library, and an extensive rare books collection. I saw a few pages in Shakespeare's own handwriting, and other original prints from Thomas Moore, the Beatles, Virginia Wolfe, and Sylvia Plath. It also is home to the Magna Carta and the Gutenberg Bible. Having taken Linguistics my fall semester this year, I was really excited about all of this. It's things you read about and then finally get to see and you have to take a step back to realize just how important the text in front of you is. I couldn't really grasp how much history and how many important documents they had in this one room. You see pictures of these things, like the Magna Carta and the Gutenberg Bible in text books all the time, but seeing them in person is something else. It makes me wonder what would ever happen if something happened to this one building. Look at how much would be lost... Yikes.
After this we went to the British Museum which was cool, although all the museums are starting to run together for me. This one did have mummies though... I was not so much a fan. The British Museum houses marble pieces form the Parthenon in Greece, and is actually in a dispute with Greece right now over the ownership of the aforementioned pieces. Britain saved these pieces when the Parthenon was starting to dramatically deteriorate, and essentially saved them from being lost to history. Greece, however, is building a museum to house these pieces, but Britain isn't too keen to give them back. Greece argues that it's their history and thus should be housed in the same country, but Britain is holding onto them tight because without them, they wouldn't be here today. A settlement isn't even close to being formulated, so I'll let them argue and enjoy my good fortune at being able to see them here... It also had the Rosetta Stone, which I preferred over the aforementioned mummies and Parthenon pieces. . The Rosetta Stone is famous because it allowed Egyptian hieroglyphics to be deciphered and translated, and has survived centuries in ridiculously good condition. I know several professors back at school who would be salivating to see this in person, so it was extremely cool to see for ourselves. This, however, was the last of our educational pieces for the day. Amanda and I promptly left to go to Oxford Circus to look around the shops and we found a store called Topshop. That store is dangerous. We both agreed we could easily drop all our money there if we weren't careful. Luckily, we stopped ourselves before we did too much damage and headed back to the flat to get ready for the evening.
As it turns out, I have a knack for finding Holy Family people while in European countries. I met up with Jon Maser and his friend Ryan tonight and that was a ball. We went to a pub and caught up for a while before detailing that we were going to see The Lion King. Apparently Jon liked that idea, so he and Ryan called and got tickets for the show, too, and we were all able to hang out a bit more and then go to the show together.
The Lion King was PHENOMENAL. I've seen it in Minneapolis before, but it's just so good. The costumes and music are amazing, and the details in the staging are great. Amanda's favorite Disney movie is The Lion King, so she was peeing her pants excited before the show: it didn't disappoint. I looked over in the middle of the show and she was just sitting there grinning. I loved it. Afterwards we all got something to eat in Covent Garden and then had to part ways. The boys are flying to Amsterdam in the morning and have to be up in 5 hours to catch a train to the airport. It made me smile knowing I can sleep in tomorrow, finally!
All in all, tonight was great. It was nice to hang out with people not from CSB-SJU and I totally enjoyed catching up with Jon and meeting Ryan. The play was superb, the night was fun. Ahh! I'm so, so lucky.
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