Monday, May 20th - The British Museum
Today we woke up bright and early at 7:30 to make it on time to our first lit class in Bloomsbury at 8:45. We read selections from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Beowulf, and the Anglo-Saxon Elegies like The Wanderer and The Seafarer. It was a really fascinating class, and we got to watch Theoden’s speech from the Two Towers (Where is the horse and the rider, etc.) in honor of it being directly lifted from line 93 of The Wanderer. Afterward, we went to the British Museum. It was, to say the least, incredible. I really can’t describe it. We must have walked around for at least three hours, just soaking it all up. My favorite bits were the Anglo-Saxon relics and the Egyptian mummies. Love how the Anglo-Saxons were just like dragons, hoarding their gold and burying it with them when they die. We also saw the Rosetta Stone (!!!) and the original facade of the Acropolis, which I had just learned about in my post-Persian Wars Greek History course last semester. There were also a bunch of giant (and I mean GIANT) statues and Assyrian/Egyptian carvings that must have been 20 feet high. The sheer size of the building is ridiculous. We still didn’t get to see the North America or the Africa exhibits, so we’ll probably go back some time next week since it’s literally a block from our classroom.
This was awesome. Best day.
