March 17, 2012

Today was the first real Saturday in London! So I took the opportunity to go out and get some sightseeing and museum done. I got up about 8:30 and got ready to go out with a group to a museum. We head out to the Liverpool Street Station and only 1 tube line was running, which was kind of annoying since all our normal lines were not running.

One of the tube stations I was in today

We went to a stop near Hyde Park , stopped at a store to get umbrella's, and walked across Hyde Park to get to the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately I fail with umbrella's and mine broke, but it still works so it's okay.

Me and my "attack" umbrella

After making our way across the park we saw the Albert Memorial in Kensington Garden, which was really interesting, it had kind of 3 tiers, the first was a statue of him, the second was 4 statue type things representing Commerce, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Engineering (which we took a picture in front of), and the bottom tier had 4 nations: America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was really pretty and interesting to see.

A rock from Norway in Hyde Park

A Coot in the Serpentine River in Hyde Park

A Wood Duck in the Serpentine River in Hyde Park

The Engineers in front of the Engineering Statue

The America Statue

After the monument we went by the Natural History Museum and down the street for lunch since it was about noontime. Seven of the twelve of us went to a little sandwich shop, where I had a baked potato with butter and a small salad that came with it. It was really good and not bad price either so I was happy. After lunch we met up with the other group and went to the Natural History Museum. The Natural History Museum was really cool, we split off once we agreed on a meeting time and place inside. I went to the mineral and gem area first since I like that stuff the best. It was gorgeous. They had almost every jewel type and mineral imaginable. In the back, they had something called The Vault were they had even cooler ones. I spent the most time in there.

Some pieces made out of diamonds - gorgeous!

Aurora Pyramid of Hope - 296 naturally colored diamonds, all sorts of colors. 

Some of the diamonds glow!

A pretty cut jewel

After the mineral and gem exhibit I just wandered around the rest, one exhibit was creepy and had all sorts of organisms in liquids being preserved. It started with plants which is okay, but them moved to more complex organisms like fish and finally to mammals. It was a little creepy. There were ton of exhibits that I wandered in and it was fun overall, though nothing else I personally loved. It was all nice though, it's a big museum with a lot to do, so I didn't see quite everything, but I got to see pretty much everything I wanted to. Another cool thing was a giant sequoia tree that was cut down awhile ago. It was about 1300 years old and on it has major historical events where in the rings they happened, which was really cool.

Giant Sequoia timeline

Giant Sequoia Tree

Seahorse in a jar 

Turtle in preserving liquid

A Shark's Head in preservation liquid....kinda gross

After the museum we took the tube a few stops (packed again) and got off, and we had two options to get to ground level: lift (aka elevator) which was packed, or 193 steps. A genius in the group decided the stairs was a good idea. It was not, by the top my thighs were burning. It was so annoying. But we made it (and then had to go up more stairs). The store was called Forbidden Planet and was a geeky/nerdy - type store but had stuff for Doctor Who, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and all sorts of stuff. The Doctor Who section had kind of cool stuff, you could even get wallpaper!

Doctor Who....wallpaper

After the store we were exhausted and head back to the underground and to Liverpool Street Station. I stopped at Tesco and got hot cocoa powder, chocolate (2/3pounds!), and apple juice, and then head back to Nido to relax after a long day out!