London, Revisited

After two quiet nights in Cardiff, we were back to London, primed to do all of the museums and activities we'd skipped six weeks earlier.

After checking into our hostel near Hammersmith Station, we walked to the Natural History Museum. The museum is housed in a gorgeous Victorian building, adorned with carved stone animals on the outside and stuffed animals on the inside (sad, when you think about it). The museum also boasts lots of plastic models, and a huge display of dinosaur skeletons.

That night, we took the tube to the City and crossed the river. We'd bought tickets to Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus at the Globe Theatre, reconstructed to resemble its Shakespearean-era self.

We had floor tickets, so we stood in the crowd at the foot of the stage and looked up at the players and at the rings of balcony seats stacked up to the ceiling. Highly recommended if you're in London and have a soft spot for old Bill and his contemporaries.

We woke up late the next morning, and by afternoon we'd made it to the British Museum, where the vast collections represent nearly the whole world and tackle many, many eras of history. Essentially the place is full of booty. British explorers and adventurers collected the valuable objects - be they fossils or Peruvian gold or whatever else - and then donated them to the museum. Among the many displays, there are rooms full of sarcophagi and statues from Egypt and Persia, and many, many mummies of all sizes.

Sometimes this game of finders-keepers doesn't go over well: many governments around the world have unsuccessfully demanded back the treasures taken from their lands, and the biggest squabble is ongoing. The British Museum has a whole wing of sculptures and carved marble from the Parthenon in Athens, taken in the early 1800s when Greece was under Ottoman rule. Greece has been trying for years to reclaim them, but the museum and each British government have refused. The pamphlet that is distributed in the museum to explain the situation basically argues that the priceless artifacts are safer in London.

Our final day was spent at the Tower of London. It's worth the expensive entrance, primarily because it includes a free tour from one of the Beefeater gaurds - yes, those guys in the blue and red uniforms that decorate gin bottle. And yes, they do wear those fabulous puffy hats.

Our tour was fantastic. Our guide was engaging, very knowledgeable and obviously enjoys his job. Especially trying to scare people (children) with the Tower's many horror stories.

For the whole hour, though, I couldn't quite get past the feeling that I knew the man leading us around, with his confident storytelling, his slightly morbid sense of humour, his love of British military history... I felt like I'd spent an hour with my dad! So I was not surprised to learn that all of the Beefeaters are decorated sergeant majors. Sergeant majors always have that special knack for being both fearsome and lovable.

After the tour, we wandered through the castle and around the walls, learning the colourful stories of its royal inhabitants. Up until Queen Victoria's reign, the Tower had a collection of royal beasts: at various times it held everything from lions and monkeys to a polar bear who was allowed to swim in the Thames. Now the only animals are the ravens that hop all over the grounds, wings clipped to keep them here because an old Welsh prophecy foretold the Tower's fall if the ravens were to leave.

At the end of the day, we grabbed our bags from the hostel and headed out to a hotel right beside Heathrow's Terminal 5. Despite the planes taking off over us, shaking the windows and drowning out whatever bad movie we were watching, we were excited: the next morning meant a fight to Istanbul and the next phase of the trip.

S.