Platform 9 3/4 and the British Museum

St Pancras

Thursday morning eleven of us took the Tube to Kings Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4.  For those who aren't sure what that is, I suggest you spend the rest of your day watching Harry Potter movies 1-8 :)  It's the platform that exists between platforms 9 and 10 that is only accessible to magic folk.  This was definitely one of my favorite things so far.  The gift shop at the Platform was like heaven.  Every wand you could ever want, apparel from each house, props from every movie and horcruxes! So awesome!  After, we explored outside the station a bit.  We saw St Pancras Station (such amazing architecture) and went to a place called The Rocket for lunch where I had my first "authentic" British meal.

Chicken and Ham pie, mash, peas and gravy

Thursday night was also very exciting, but stressful.  6 girls from my program and I booked our flight to Rome for spring break (early March).  Since we only have class 3 days a week, we will fly to Rome on Thursday morning and spend 3 days touring.  From there we will take the train to Florence for 3 days, then to Pisa (and Cinque Terre) for 2 and end in Venice for 3.  I am very excited for this trip, I have always dreamed of going to Italy!  I also booked my flight to Germany in April to visit my friend Kate, who was an AFS student at Edgerton when I was a junior.  I'm excited to explore my German roots and spend time with her!

Friday was a very fun day but I am now suffering from "museum fatigue".  My program coordinated a group trip to the British Museum lead by our favorite tour guide, Britt.  The museum is unbelievably huge! We spend four hours there and I don't think we even saw more than half of it!  Everything is exhibited by time period and location.  We saw the remains of the Parthenon that was purchased from the Turks and then sold to the museum.  They were amazing! However, much of it was damaged and even destroyed by the Christians because they represented Pagan Gods. 

Sculptures of the Gods from the Parthenon

"Ginger" the mummy

We saw the chess board that inspired the pieces for Wizards Chess in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  The chess pieces are believed to have come from Norway.  We also saw the Rosetta Stone, which is pretty interesting.  The best exhibit we saw was the ancient Egyptian.  We saw a naturally mummified body that still had skin and hair in tact!!  "Ginger", as they call him, was found in the desert and believe he was stabbed in the back.  Ginger is easily top 5 one of the craziest things I have ever seen.  We saw many sarcophagi, which I really enjoyed. 

Asian Exhibit 

The museum had an African artifact and art gallery that was pretty neat.  There was also an extensive Asian collection.  The statues from Tibet, China, Hinduism and Buddhism were stunning.  Another exhibit is in a giant library that has a copy of every book published in Britain up until the 1980s (I think I got that right!).  The library is enormous!  It also has statues and artifacts from all time periods.  As I write this I feel bad because I can't do this museum justice in words.  If you ever get the chance to visit this museum its a must.
As a history major (and nerd) this museum is just breathtaking.  The building itself is unbelievable and all the history inside it is almost too much to handle!  I definitely have a much bigger appreciation for history after seeing everything today.

Library

In front of the British Museum

Today we have also accumulated a whopping 2.5 inches of snow, which means half of the Tube and other transport is shut down and most of the city has no idea what to do!  Its quite funny for our program of Wisconsin kids, who trudge to class in blizzards.  Some schools I've seen have canceled classes and exams!  We are taking this "blizzard" as a chance to stay in and watch Harry Potter all night. Not like we could find transportation anywhere anyways!