Hi all!
So last night was a bit rough. Didn't feel well at all! Woke up this morning and felt slightly better but had a lie in to relax a bit and take it easy.
Then I went to the post office to send some souvenirs home. After about 15 minutes of sticking up the box with tape, I took it to the counter and nearly fell over when it cost 83 pounds ($166) to send 3.2kg of stuff home. Yikes!!! But needed to, no point lugging souvenirs and things I don't need around all year. Won't be doing that again!!
Then I got the bus into the city. I sat up the top of the double decker one - yay! I had a 1pm appointment at HSBC to set up a bank account. Only took 15 minutes because the teaching agency have a deal with them that meant I didn't need any documents or anything due to the teaching agency already having them on file!
Afterwards I went to the British Museum which was only a couple of blocks away. When mum and I were in Athens in January 2013 we went to the new Acropolis Museum. Here we found out that some English guy called Lord Elgin stole pretty much half of the ruins from the acropolis and brought them back to England! Well today I finally got to see the other half of the Acropolis ruins in the British Museum haha. There's still a huge debate as to whether the British government should return the items to Greece. The argument is that Lord Elgin was the British ambassador to Istanbul during the time that Greece was still part of the Ottoman Empire. He went in and salvaged the ruins during a time that hey were being vandalised and stolen (early 1800s). In 1816 the British government bought them off him and they argue they were protecting the ruins.
The museum was quite good, I also enjoyed an Egyptian exhibition which included the Rosetta Stone (it was used to decipher hieroglyphics) and an exhibition of prints of Napoleon.
Afterwards I walked for about an hour to the Tower of London. I followed a path along the Thames and enjoyed some more sunshine (sunglasses required three days in a row now!). Along the way I passed the Royal Opera House, the Millenium Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral and lots of cute little shops. Some police came whisking past at one point and lots of limos and security cars drove past. The limo had a Mexican flag on top. Based on the fact that half the flags down the Mall at Buckingham Palace the other day were Mexican I'm assuming their president is in town and that was him!!
I had a look around outside the Tower of London and at Tower Bridge. Once again, mum and I went inside both of these last time and I remember it so well I don't really feel I need to again! But I took a photo in the same spot as last time. I'll attach both to the blog, thought it was funny!
Got the tube back but the only problem was my phone died so I had no way of contacting Rhi to find out where she was. So I had to sit on her doorstep for about half an hour until her housemate arrived home and let me in! Never mind :)
Tonight we are cooking potatoes with beans and cheese for dinner, my hunger is finally back after feeling pretty crap all day. Yay!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
No comments:
Post a Comment