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 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.
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 Egyptian collection is wide and
varied, and the boys had a lot of different things to look at.
The group again this time with a Scarab Beetle. James seem particularly
attached to it for some reason?
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!
The multiple items in the Middle ages
area was astounding also.
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”.