Off to London

With meetings on Monday and Friday near London, it was necessary for me to return to the UK for the weekend.



They say that "When one is tired of London, one is tired of life". While I won't say that I am tired of London, I will say that I find it very tiring. I think it is how enormous everything is here - the city itself, the museums, the department stores, the restaurant bills, etc.



One of the really great things about London is the amazing collection of free museums. I'm not aware of anything like it in the world. I began my off-day with a trip to the National Gallery. It's sheer size doesn't allow you to ponder for too long at any one painting, unless you want to spend the whole day there. I will say that after you've seen one dozen paintings of a half-naked Mary with baby Jesus, the next 2 or 3 dozen don't seem as impressive. I also found it interesting that I actually recognized some paintings from watching Little Einsteins with SJ. So, i guess it really is educational.



After the National Gallery, I walked up to the British Museum, which in a continual theme of London museums, is absolutely enormous. They have a really great collection of Greek and Roman artifacts, as well as the Rosetta Stone - which was a lot bigger than I had always imagined it. Some of it does get a bit old, however, as ancient pots from Mesopotamia are certainly of historical interest - they aren't much for visual interest. Many of them look exactly like pots kicking around my parents' garage. Before they were buried for a few thousand years, they were probably old pots kicking around someone else's garage - err - stable.