Millennia of awesome. You have six hours. Go.

One of my favourite places anywhere is the British Museum. I fell in love with the place on my first visit twenty-two years ago, and today I was going to share it with Emma, Anna and Mario.

Almost as good: this morning we found an amazing coffee shop about 100 metres from our apartment. Full of tech-hipster types, with very exotic and expensive-looking haircuts, and everyone online via phones, iPads or - for the laggards - laptops.

Speaking of phones, mine isn't working, nor was Mario's. We both thought We had international roaming, but didn't. This was important because they were travelling in from Gatwick, where they'd stayed with Mario's mother Mara, who was skipping London and heading directly to Croatia.

Which meant we had no idea when they were coming in, so we had to stay close until they arrived. They showed up while I was at the amazing coffee shop for my second, and Emma in the sandwich shop across the road. She did her crazy-Aussie thing, standing in the doorway and yelling at them as they climbed out of a taxi.

Accommodation crisis averted, we set off for the British Museum via the Tube. The Tube hasn't changed much, but the ticketing system has. Trying to work out whether to buy an Oyster Card or Travel Card, and for which zones and periods, has become more complex. After my brain melted into a shiny pile of goo I gave up trying to work it out and asked the guy at the station.

Simple, really. I must remember to ask for advice in the future. Like the next time I get lost.

We arrived at the Museum just after midday, delayed by Mario missing one connection. Emma, Anna and I managed to leap aboard just as the warning buzzer went off, but Mario? Nooooo. So he had to wait for the next train.

A whole two minutes.

After Sydney, where trains are usually around 15-20 minutes apart, this is nothing. Although Simon told us about seeing a woman missing her connection and flipping out because she had to wait three minutes. Guess it's just what you're used to.

Back to the Museum.

I deliberately had kept everybody in the dark about what to expect at the Museum, because I wanted to surprise them.

It worked.

The British Museum is one of, if not the, greatest antiquity museum in the world. Full of statues, jewellery, utensils, friezes, tools, even dead people - including freakin' mummies! - from ancient Rome, Greece, Assyria, Egypt, Crete, and more.

We didn't have enough time to see the exhibits for the Americas or Asia, nor for any of the new stuff. You know, like 14th Century Europe.

Emma, who thinks I'm a bit of a geek and expected this to be some dry nerd-thing, said, "this is awesome!" About forty times.

I agreed.

For example: check out this 15 tonne statue (wife inserted in shot for scale) which if I recall correctly is a 4,000 year old sculpture from Assyria.

They also have the Rosetta Stone. Not the language courses, the real Rosetta Stone, the one Napoleons' army took from Egypt, and which provided the first breakthrough in translating Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I figure we saw one-third, maybe half, of the exhibits, and we were rushing a few of them

Awesome, indeed.

We were exhausted by the end, not helped by jet-lagged bodies insisting it was around 3am Sydney time, so dinner was home-delivered pizza. In honour of Rome, of course. Sorta.

 

 

 

 

 

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