Second Star to the Right: I See Dead People (and Funny Ones Too)

So today I got to see the Rosetta Stone (the real one) and meet the Queen (a Lego one). I posed in front of naughty statues, secretly touched ancient structures that I wasn't supposed to touch (I couldn't help it, they were so amazing), walked through a giant toy store, read from my favorite book ever, passed yet another quiz (boring) ate some good food, laughed so hard that my stomach hurt, and learned more about how awesome this place we call London can be. No big deal.

In the morning we had classes again. We usually only have them on Mondays and Thursdays, but since we will be venturing out to the West this week we had to move the class to today. We had more quizzes, learned about William the Conqueror, and talked about Jane Austen. The girls kind of went crazy as we talked about Miss Austen. It's times like that that it is very apparent that the guy to girl ratio is just a little unbalanced. I look forward to the days where we start talking about Remains of the Day. It wasn't actually that bad though. I have actually never read a Jane Austen novel before, and just finished Persuasion last night. Though not something that I would typically read, I found that I liked it enough to get by. Fortunately when we have discussions like the one we had today class goes by very quickly.

After class the guys decided that we were going to have a day out....plus Aubrey. :) We all went over to explore the massive and very interesting British Museum. I never knew I liked museums so much until I came here. Like I said before, it was massive. We explored for a good two or three hours and we didn't even see all of it, and will have to come back later to explore some more. Today we went through the Egyptian, Greek and ancient Asia exhibits. They had so many amazing things to see! We even saw some dead people! The most popular thing to see was the Rosetta Stone (though I was shocked when lots of people in the group didn't know what it was). We tried really hard to get a picture in front of it, but there was always a big throng of people in front trying to take their own photos. Fortunately we squeezed one in before being shoved to the floor. Ok I lie, we weren't shoved. We also saw a piece of the Great Sphinx and many naughty statues. Fortunately we are mature and can handle these things (teehee).

Speaking of being mature, we then went to Hamley's Toy Store, the biggest toy store in Britain. The thing has six stories full of fun and bubble gum. It felt like walking through Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It was the Sam's Club of Toy Stores as the employees all run around playing with toys, tempting you to partake of their fun. Our favorite floor was the Lego floor, featuring a life size model of the Queen. She and I are now good friends. I'll try not to brag about it. Upon arrival home I saw that my Amazon.uk package had arrived and that I got a beautiful British version of The Book Thief. Death says he wants to go on holiday as opposed to vacation. I am pleased.

Our dinner today was very beautiful as we ate mashed potatoes, steak, rolls and watermelon. Though we do not know for sure, we are thinking that this is our 4th of July celebration meal since tomorrow we will be traveling through Wales and Thais won't be able to make us delicious foods. I was giddy as I ate two and a half steaks. It made my stomach and my tongue very happy.

In the evening our entire group went to see One Man, Two Guvnors. It was one of the productions included in the cost of the program. It was a hilarious straight play and I was seriously laughing the entire time. It tells the story of a ridiculous man that works for two different people. One of his masters is a women pretending to be her dead brother to try and get money from her dead brother's fiancé, and the other master is this woman's boyfriend who killed the woman's brother. Combine the crazy plot with a band that would play songs between scenes, the cast members pulling members of the audience up on stage to do ridiculous things and lots of slapstick humor, and you get a play that makes a Jace very happy. Also, a fun note about theaters here is that people love to drink alcohol during intermission, so most theaters have a bar (though I guess this may just be a normal thing outside of Utah). Well we wanted in on all social/cultural things and so I bought myself a surprisingly delicious carbonated lemonade. I'm kept the bottle. I'm a hoarder.

Tomorrow we leave early in the morning to travel to Wales. I am very excited, though it will be weird to leave the center for so long. I have become so accustomed to living here that the thought of leaving makes me a bit nervous. I will survive though, and continue to have many fun adventures. Not sure how the blogging situation will look these next few days, but I will do my best to keep posting. Now I need to pack my backpack.