London Day 2
Mike with his can of free drink that somebody handed him on the London street. I refused to take one, since it was being handed to me by someone on the street. We later found out that it was a radio station promotion; Mike ended up with two; he said they tasted like Red Bull.
This is where they used to have the hangman's scaffolding; sorry I can't remember what it was called
Mike thought high-up window washers were interesting.
Monument to Nelson at Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
The cool tour guide on the hop-on, hop-off tour bus
Where the horse guards hang out near Downing Street
Houses of Parliament
The flag shows that Parliament is in session
The Houses of Parliament
The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
An abondoned modern eyesore that our guide told us not to look at, so Mike took a picture
The Eye of London

The Eye of London plus Big Ben
The Eye of London plus Big Ben
The Eye of London plus Big Ben plus the Houses of Parliament
The Eye of London plus Big Ben plus the Houses of Parliament
Australia House - this is where they filmed Gringott's Bank in the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Not sure what this is, but it is from the tour bus
The black looking house is from the 1500s - taken from the tour bus
Roman ruins in the financial district - from the tour bus
Mike liked the statue next to the ultra modern city hall. The city hall (partially obscured by the bridge here) looks like a bunch of pizza boxes on top of each other
The Tower of London - from the tour bus
The Eye of London - from the tour bus
Top of the front of Westminster Abbey - from the tour bus
Bottom of the front of Westminster Abbey - from the tour bus
Cool-looking dragon-fly weathervane
Westminster Abbey and the London Eye- from the tour bus
This building used to be a hospital where infusions were invented and Grey's Anatomy was first written.
The underground trains generate quite a breeze as seen on this woman's hair at Oxford station
The Tottenhem Court underground station
Christine in front of the British Museum
Christine in front of the British Museum
Christine in front of the Rosetta Stone
The back of the Rosetta Stone
Something Egyption at the British Museum (maybe a picture miss?)
Mike at the British Museum
Mike in front of some really big Assyrian statues at the British Museum
This is a statue of another Egyptian Pharoh, but it has got Ramses II name grafitti'ed on it. The Egyptian pharoh's created lots of statues of themselves because they believed that there soul needed to use the statues as road markers to the netherworld. Ramses II wanted to make absolutely sure that he got to "heaven", so he has the most statues of any pharoh around, plus he put his name on a lot of other pharoh's statues, so his soul could be tricked into using those too. He was a funny guy, that Ramses II.
This is a colossal pharoh head. the top part of the hat represents Upper Egypt and the lower part of the hat represents Lower Egypt. This was one of the first pharohs to rule a united Upper and Lower Egypt
This is Christine next to a stone tablet which talks about this Egyptian guy's travels and how he decided that he was going to set up a memorial to himself and the gods....in other words, it was an ancient hieroglyphic travel blog, just like ours!
Christine next to a statue of an Egyptian pharoh (sorry, I can't remember right now)
An Egyptian Pharoh
A close-up of Ramses II grafitti on the other pharoh's statue
The hieroglyphs for cat
Christine sitting next to a statue she liked. Mike wanted me to sit like the statue, but I didn't think it proper.
Christine in profile with a colossal head of Ramses II profile
An Egyptian sarcophogus
An Egyptian mummy
This is very dark, but I think it is Ginger, a mummy preserved naturally by the desert from like 3000 BCE
Christine and some cat mummies
A cool looking Egyptian cat statue
Don't have a cow, man!
Ancient crib sheets
A very horny helmet
Christine at the British Museum
Cool mask from the British museum
An Astrolabe from the British Museum (this was the first piece in the museum's collection)
This is a glass vase (Greek, I think?). It is made like a true cameo, of a dark glass underneath with a layer of white glass on top. Then the top white glass is carved away to form the picture. This particular vase is doubly cool because it was broken into 200-odd pieces by a drunken visitor to the museum in the 1970s and was repaired. Pretty amazing, huh?
The Elgin Marbles at the British Museum - the Parthenon Frieze
The Elgin Marbles at the British Museum - the Parthenon room
More Greek statuary at the British Museum
A cool Syrian Statue at the British Museum. Notice how the beastie has five legs? This is so that it looks like it has four legs if you look at it head on from the front or back.
Christine at the British Museum in front of a Syrian frieze depicting a lion hunt
Christine on a cool bench in the lobby of the British Library
Christine in front of the British Library
Between Platforms 9 and 10 on St. Pancras Station - the "true" Platform 9 3/4, except for the construction, so I don't think this is the right place
The Spaghetti House where we finally got some food!