I have visited the British museum twice before today. I first visited in January 2003 concentrating on the Ancient Egypt collection back then as I was on a very short visit to London. I came back with Rav last Sunday but we did not stay very long and again, we concentrated on the ancient civilizations collections: Egypt, Greece and Asyria.

That is a very limited experience of such a great museum so today, I went to checkout the museum one more time wanting to see some of the other collections. And since the entrance is free, I don’t see why I would not come again and again!

Anyway. To my delight, I found out there was a very nice exposition named Enlightenment that picked up my interest.

As I wrote yesterday, an historical period I am very interested in is the period of the French revolution. And a movement that in a way led to the French revolution is the philosophy of Enlightenment (Les lumieres in French) that took up during the XVIIIth century.

The exposition is really good. Organized around the library and personal collections of George III and some scientists of the period, it provides a good overview of all the topics that started to be examined at that period: Biology, Geology, Archeology, Antiquities, Science, History and Origins of Art, Ancient Languages study, Mysteries, Spirituality…Some great scientific tools of the period like globes and astrolabs are presented. There is also a copy of the Rosetta Stone that not only one can touch but also examine for a long time without being pushed around by other people trying to get a picture of it as it is the case for the original located somewhere else in the museum. I am sure most of these people don’t even look at it and could not tell you in which order the languages are written on the stone! It is quite nice to be able to feel the cavities of the text of such important document.

Everything is well documented and very educative. I finally stayed a lot of time in the room as everywhere I was looking, I could see one more item or presentation of interest.

Since I was at the museum, I could not pass on another visit of the Egyptian collection. It always brings back very good memories and at the same time, I can put many pieces in context so it is a lot of fun. I really liked the part on the book of the dead with some great papyrus including one depicting the last judgment (I bought a similar one in Cairo for those that did not follow 😉 ).

Since Rav and one of his good friend work close by the museum, we went to lunch. He took me to a dive Korean restaurant that cannot be found if one does not know about it beforehand as it is not advertised outside. I even wonder if it has a proper license! We entered a Korean grocery store, chose between two main dishes, payed and walked all the way to the back down a staircase. We ended up in a room with some tables and chairs surrounded by shelves full of tapes and a stack of VCRs surely used to produce these tapes! We were served promptly. Food was very good! A unique experience ;).
We met again later after they were finished with work. We tried some bars around the same area and ended up at a Taco bar/club with excellent tacos, coronas and cool music. It was a lot of fun. Thanks guys.
Another good day in gloomy rainy London ;).

On other news. Today is the 3rd day since my backpack went missing. I could not get through the system in England but Ledi managed to get someone in the USA. They don’t have any idea of where it could be. Hopefully, it is partying with the 20 000 other bags stranded at Heathrow!