“I called in at the British Museum…”

This trip didn’t start off well. On Thursday, I checked my flight to make sure it was leaving when I thought it was leaving. There was an alert on the main page of the British Airways Web site about a cabin crew strike, which was to start on the 18th and go for at least a week. My flight out to London on the 14th was still on, but my flight home on the 22nd had been canceled. I’d not received any notice about it, by e-mail or by phone, and I know I’d provided both pieces of contact information when I’d booked the flights. Still, it could have been worse – I could have found out about the cancelation on the 22nd. I at least had time to make other arrangements. So I booked my flight home on another airline, although it means I have a layover in Chicago, which I’m not pleased about. The sole reason I booked through British Airways was because I could get direct flights to and from London via BWI. So I’m not looking forward to the homeward journey.

Anyway, I arrived in London this morning. I’m staying overnight at an IBIS hotel near St Pancras station, since the Eurostar to France leaves from there. I have a tiny room with an overly firm bed.

To keep myself awake, I walked down to the British Museum, which is a bit further away than I thought it would be.

Along the way, I stopped in at a Waterstone’s bookstore and bought a copy of The Magnificent Spilsbury by Jane Robins. It’s not available in the states yet. Victorian-era forensics has lately been of interest to me because my mom got me hooked on the Murdoch Mysteries – sort of a Canadian Sherlock Holmes/CSI series.

Once at the museum, I went to the King’s Library, the oldest room in the museum, which is set up to look like an old-world era library with creaking wood floors, books neatly stacked on shelves along all the walls, and display cases featuring all kinds of curiosities in the middle of the room:





The books belonged to King George III and were donated to the nation. His collection comprises 60,000 books, most of which are now in the British Library. The ones in the museum are on loan.

The display cases in the room are arranged to show various stages of enlightenment: the natural world, the birth of archeology, art and civilization, classifying the world, ancient scripts, religion and ritual, trade and discovery.

There’s also a touchable copy of the Rosetta Stone in this room:



From there, I went up to the Clock Room, which traces the development of timekeeping from early examples up through to more modern and recognizable examples:





My stringed instrument friends might find this interesting:



I had a fish and chips dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. I hope the bed won’t be too uncomfortable to sleep on.