A Little Rushed

Tuesday-- today we focused on Anglo-Saxon Britain, which included trips to the British Library (yes!) and back to the British Museum.

At the British Library, which is like America's Library of Congress, they have a exhibit where they display the most famous of their treasures. We went in particular to see the Lindisfarne Gospels (an illuminated manuscript made in Anglo-Saxon England) and several other books from the time. I also got to see their collection of early Bibles (really cool, including a Gutenberg Bible), some pages of Da Vinci's notebooks, and the earliest copy of Beowulf, among other things. It was amazing. Still, I didn't even get to see all the books in that one room before my team rushed me out and on to the next thing. : ( I plan to go back.

Then back to the British museum, where we focused on one exhibit-- the treasures dug up from a Saxon burial mound at Sutton Hoo. This stuff was AMAZING. Some of the pieces are rather famous-- you've probably seen pictures of them. But there's nothing like seeing something in person. The tomb included a ship, some dishes and stuff, and the king's armor and jewelry, which is the most amazing. The jewelry looked like it could've been made by Tolkein's dwarves or maybe the men of Rohan. Beautiful. (I took some pictures.)

Then finally we were finished with our assignment, so my team left me in peace to look around. They're all nice kids, but they look at things so fast! I spent another hour or two in there, and only saw a few rooms-- there's so much to look at!

I went shopping yesterday afternoon, down on Oxford street, where all the popular clothing shops are. I actually bought myself some earrings and two shirts, all for way too much money, of course, but it could've been much more.