The test’s over. My brain still resembles Jell-O, but it’s time to be a tourist.<\/p>\n
So let’s start off big. How about the British Museum<\/strong>? Is that big enough for you?<\/p>\n It’s big enough for me.<\/p>\n I headed off to the Russell Square<\/strong> tube station, and encountered a sort of tube station that I haven’t encountered before. There are no escalators, just 3 giant elevators, and a spiral staircase with 175 steps<\/strong> and a warning that was no joke.<\/p>\n When my train pulled in, the access to the Bad.<\/p>\n Very bad.<\/p>\n Remember how I said I’ve seen people make luggage mistakes before? I saw someone make a luggage mistake that looked like it could very well have been fatal– she was trying to lug a giant suitcase up these stairs.<\/p>\n That’s nuts.<\/p>\n I was having a hard time just trying to get my chunky American frame up the stairs. 175 steps… that has to be what? 12 stories? I stopped more and more frequently as I got near the top, because I was starting to see bright lights and hear the voices of what could be long-dead ancestors beckoning.<\/p>\n Turns out it was just the main station.<\/p>\n The downside of my stupid escapade on the stairs was that it took a lot out of me. That was energy and strength that I would need for my assault on the British Museum, which is no less of a monster than the stairs at Russell Square Station.<\/p>\n To get to the museum from the station, I cut straight across Russell Square Park<\/strong>, which is a lovely green area, then dodged the crazy traffic in the circle, walked down a street, turned a corner, and bam! There it was.<\/p>\n It’s huge.<\/p>\n The British Museum is not to be trifled with.<\/p>\n It’s free to get in (you ought to make a donation), but things like maps, guides, and audio guides all cost money. If you want an audio guide, be prepared to leave some sort of photo ID, like a driver’s license or a passport behind.<\/p>\n The museum is camera-friendly<\/strong>. Take pictures of whatever you want<\/strong>. Seriously, go for it. They don’t care one bit. I had fun, because most American and Japanese museums would wig out<\/em> at that idea.<\/p>\n Here’s the rub– if you take the audio guide and you carry a camera around your neck, you are in for some suffering<\/strong>. I had both, and both annoyed the hell out of me. I wound up never using the guide, anyway, as everything in the museum is well-labeled.<\/p>\n Skip the audio guide, unless you can’t read.<\/p>\n First off I took a look at the treasures of Ancient Greece. They had lots of neat stuff, none of which I can remember the names of. I am a terrible and uncultured person. But it was all very impressive, and I took lots of pictures.<\/p>\n The bits they took from the Acropolis <\/strong>were very moving, as were the sculptures of the heads of the four major philosophers, and the sculpture of Alexander the Great.<\/p>\n Then it was off to Egypt<\/strong>. I was more interested in the sculptures than the mummies, to be honest. I always thought that the obsession with the display of old dead bodies to be kind of gruesome, yet that was the part of the museum that was the most jam-packed. Figures.<\/p>\n I think there should be a rule that any archaeologist that displays a body in a museum also has to be displayed in a museum when they die so hordes of sweaty future tourists can gawk at them<\/em>.<\/p>\n It’s only fair.<\/p>\n After those two sections, my legs were starting to die off, because this museum is HUGE, and my hiking shoes are 4 years old, and on their way out. I knew I only had one more section left in me, and then I’d have to turn tail and run back.<\/p>\n I decided to head to the Japan <\/strong>section. (Hey, that’s my main interest.) It was a nice display that carries you from the Joumon period all the way to modern Japan.<\/p>\n By then I was totally beat, so it was time to shuffle back to Earls Court.<\/p>\n I went to the office supply store on the high street on the way back to the hotel to buy boxes, packing tape, and a magic marker, because I need to get rid of these books I don’t need. I don’t want to have to carry them back with me on the plane, and I want to have more room for souvenirs.<\/p>\n At least that’s the logic.<\/p>\n Not sure about dinner tonight. Nando’s again? Or maybe just more sandwiches?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The test’s over. My brain still resembles Jell-O, but it’s time to be a tourist. So let’s start off big. How about the British Museum? Is that big enough for you? It’s big enough for me. I headed off to the Russell Square tube station, and encountered a sort of tube station that I haven’t […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[383,75,5],"tags":[443,442,440,389,832,444,384,831,344,408,438,441,439,895],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-britain","category-photography","category-travel","tag-ancient-egypt","tag-ancient-greece","tag-british-museum","tag-earls-court","tag-holycrapthatsalotofsteps","tag-japanese-art","tag-london","tag-london2011","tag-luggage","tag-nandos","tag-russell-square","tag-russell-square-park","tag-russell-square-tube-station","tag-travel","category-383-id","category-75-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}lifts<\/del> elevators was jam-packed. It looked like it would take a while, so like a dummy, I thought, “Well, it’s only 175 steps. How bad can it be?”<\/p>\nGetting There is Half the Fun<\/h3>\n
The Treasures of the World–Now the Treasures of Great Britain!<\/h3>\n