Day 19 – London - Tuesday, January 21st 2014: FINAL DAY

Today is the last of our European adventure. It again started with a hearty breakfast and then the now familiar packing of our bags ready to move. However this time we were to store our bags for the day as we were not leaving till the evening to catch our flight.

We again divided into groups to do different things in this big city of London. My merry band went to the British Museum, which was only about a block away from our hotel.

The boys walking to the Museum (James attempting to move faster than the speed of light)

The British Museum

The British has many famous and important and interesting artefacts and treasures, one that the boys found very interesting was “sort of” featured in a recent movie.

The famous Crystal Skull. Now proved to be a fake.

However one of our group (Christian) insisted on singing the Indiana Jones theme song till after several minutes he was “threatened” by the rest of the group. A golden calm returned.

One of the most important and famous pieces in the Museum collection is the Rosetta Stone. This was the item that Champollion was able to use to finally decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs.   

The Rosetta Stone

The Egyptian collection is wide and varied, and the boys had a lot of different things to look at.

Jack, Christian, James, Carey, Liam, Julius and Robert with a new friend. The god Horus.

The group again this time with a Scarab Beetle. James seem particularly attached to it for some reason?

A rather large King

A rather beautiful statue

The group again minus Jack who must have gone AWOL      

One of the great gates of at Assyrian Empire

The British Empire at one time covered much of the world. They seemed to have the philosophy that if it was takeable then let’s take it!

“Ooh here’s a nice Greek temple….let’s take it home!”

One of several hundred perfect ancient Grecian urs and various other pottery items.

The multiple items in the Middle ages area was astounding also.

Medieval floor tiles used in high status dwellings or Cathedrals        

Robert and Jack looking at a relic from Ur

Eventually everyone was exhausted from the massive amount of walking we had done in this huge and amasing Museum. It was drawing close to the time we had to get back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. However on the way back we saw a very different sight. A store established in 1830 that produces and sell Umbrellas’ and walking sticks. This was seen as a bit humorous till it was ascertained that the average Umbrella was around $600 and there were $1000 walking sticks with solid silver heads.

The bus arrived early and we were off to Heathrow. Now this airport can be very trying, it is after all one of the busiest in the world. However this time we went through with surprising ease. Fortunately there were even more shops for our weary travellers to spend more money. Eventually we were able to go to the departure lounge to await boarding.

We are now aboard a great big Airbus 380, and big it is! However we are about as aft as you can get as we are sitting in the very back rows of seats. We have been in the air for 3.5 hrs and we still have 9 hrs of flying time to go. I will send in this last instalment of our travels when we arrive in Singapore.

It has been a very tiring and busy 3 weeks, but it has also been a very eventful and stimulating time as well. The boys have eaten a LOT of every type of food you can imagine, especially pizza. They have been exposed to places where English is not the normal language and to items and places they have only seen on TV or read about in books. From now on when something is aired about places we have been they will now be able to say “I’ve been there”.