(I'm going to use the word "amazing" too much, I'll clean this up in post-trip editing.) Guess who is exhausted, again! What a full day. After a quick breakfast at a local cafe (since we overslept and didn't make the breakfast at the hotel), we made our way up north to the British Museum. And that's what we did today. The end. Well, okay, I'll expand on that. The British Museum is huge. Remember, folks, Britain has been around for a looooong time. And, once upon a time, it ruled over a quarter of the planet. In this time, treasures were accumulated from all over. Well, much of it ended up in this museum. It's quite amazing! First up, you're greeted by the enormity of the great hall. This gigantic domed room is just amazing, with a glass roof that lets the light shine in and lets you watch birds relax on it. From there, we wandered into the Egyptian hall to see the one and only Rosetta stone. This giant pics of stone with a story printed in three languages (ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, medieval Egyptian, and Greek) allowed scholars to finally decode the ancient hieroglyphs. And it was there, sitting in front of me, in a glass case. Just amazing. On top of that, we saw:

• The head and torso of a statue of Ramesses
• A fragment of the Sphinx's beard
• Ancient sarcophogi

We moved on to the ancient Assyrian rooms to see many wall carvings, and then onto the Greek rooms to see so many ancient artifacts, including actual marble statures, friezes, and metopes from the Parthenon (as well as reading up on the controversy surrounding the acquisition of those pieces). It was simply awe-inspiring to see things that old up close. To see the detail put into the sculptures, even the parts of them that nobody would see (as they'd have had their backs against a slab, high atop the structure). I'm really glad we went to see this. The museum is simple huge. We spent over 4 hours there, and we saw but a fraction of the collection. It will definitely be something we visit again on another trip here. Following the closing of the museum, we wandered to a nearby pub (The Princess Louise), then made our way south to check out some other pub recommendations, namely the Royal Oak (most excellent pub) and the Market Porter (great selection, huge crowds -- see today's pics). We topped off the day with a middle-eastern meal near the pubs, then caught the tube back to the hotel. And now I'm beat. Pics from today here. Also days 12, 11, 10, and 9.