Ghosts, Gaslights, and Guinness

Status: Very happy and very tired

# of Fish and Chips consumed to date: 2

*phew* Today was good, but quite long

We went to the British Museum.

Those who had gone before me told me that I could probably spend three days there and not see everything. They were not lying

My loverly roommate heard that I was going and told me that I HAD to watch out for the Parthenon exhibit. So I did. Here is what followed:


























There was a mummy exhibit, which I found fascinating, but it brought back the horrible memories of a younger me in the Chicago Museum of Natural History. They had a mummy exhibit. We had to walk over the mummies. We had to go down some stairs to see the mummies face to face. I cried my eyes out the whole time. But:

Can you blame me?

The exhibit on clocks made me so happy I thought I was going to pee my pants. I would have given anything to bring one of those home with me.



Then, my brother and I went on a walking tour called Ghost, Gaslights and Guinness. Our tour guide, Richard III (named because there are five Richards that lead tours in this group of London Walks and he happens to be the third Richard), was quite a character. He is one hell of an actor - really creeped me out with his stories about ghosts around the Holborn Station area. He took us into a pub and explained that Catholics used to hold mass in the basement long long ago. If they were caught with the Eucharist, they were dragged to Lincolns Inn Park, drawn and quartered. If you were lucky, they didn't drag you through the streets behind a horse before they killed you.

The most interesting thing I learned about was the connections between barbers and surgeons. Way back when, barbers and surgeons were in the same guild; barbers could perform surgery and surgeons could cut hair. The twirling red and white thingy outside of barbers' places (called a stele, I believe) has its origin back in this time. After a surgery, surgeon/barbers would hang the bloody bandages outside their shoppe and when the wind caught at them, it would twirl them around the pole. And there you have that.

Well, the fastest amputation without an anesthetic was 35 seconds. While this is an amazing feat, it loses some of it's shine when you find out, along with the amputated leg, the doctor cut off the man's right testicle and the attendant's four fingers on his left hand. The patient died. The attendant died. The doctor died (of blood poisoning from the surgery). Nice going, Ace.

Halfway through the walk, we stopped at a pub called The Nell of Old Drury Pub. Nell used to sell oranges. She had something to do with one of the kings. I think she was a mistress. Whatever. She died and she haunts around the place. Yay. And no, I did not have a Guinness, though I was tempted to to make the walking tour complete. I did have a local brew called Tanglefoot. Good good stuff.

And then I met this very kind guy and his daughter, Maddie, who had just graduated from high school in Washington. She wants to get a creative writing degree. ^_^ We had words - words about books, our hatred for Twilight and those subsequent novels, her love of Tolkien, our favorite movie genres and so on and so forth. She recommended a few books to me. I recommended a few books to her. In the end, she left me her deviantart site. Turns out she's into Cosplay, drawing, making her own corsets and skirts. I have yet to read her fiction, but I'm looking foward to it.

Needless to say, her and I became fast acquointances. She was a wonderful girl.

Then we had super cheap, super greasy, super glorious fish and chips for dinner at this hole-in-the-wall place.

Now I'm here.

I'm a very tired girl.

G'night

Pip pip, cherrio and all that rot!