Museum 1: The Natural History Museum
This imposing, intricately constructed building is an absolute beauty. I think, in all honesty, standing outside and admiring it was the best part of the visit for me! Not that there's anything wrong with the place, of course. The thing for me was that most of the exhibits and information dealt with things that I, as a university student with several years of science education in elementary and high school, already knew. I wouldn't say that the museum is geared toward children, exactly, but it's nothing that you haven't seen before if you remember your early science classes and/or have visited a natural history museum before. Another thing that cut my visit short was that I arrived pretty much as soon as the museum opened, since I wanted to get three different places in that day, and this meant that I showed up at the same time as the multiple school groups that were visiting that day.
Of course, I fully support children being taken to museums to learn about science. It's a great opportunity for them to see amazing things and become more interested in science as they realize that it isn't all about learning facts for a test. At the same time, I have anxiety issues that make it difficult for me to handle the presence of loud, unpredictable groups of young children, and a large number of exactly that sort of children entered at the same time as I did. I managed to get through a few rooms, and it was all very nice and well-designed, but eventually the groups of children cranked up my anxiety until I started to feel ill, and I decided it was probably best that I move on and leave them to enjoy their school trip. I enjoyed admiring the building for a little longer and taking some more pictures when I was back outside.
Museum 2: The V&A
The V&A was a much more relaxing visit. It was really interesting to see all of the beautiful art pieces, from Roman statues to religious triptychs, stained glass and handmade clothing. The illuminated manuscripts were especially beautiful, considering that books are a passion of mine! I walked around for a while and admired lots of different kinds of art, but the previous day's trek was getting to me and I was pretty sore and tired, so I decided to take a break. To my delight, the V&A boasts a lovely little courtyard, where they sell light lunches and water, so I bought a bottle of water and settled down to rest on the grass for a while. It was nice to just be able to sit quietly and people-watch, taking in the pleasant experience of listening to people chattering away in British accents as though it was no big deal (which, to them, I'm sure it's not, but this Canadian is unashamedly in love with English and Scottish accents, so it was a treat).
Museum 3: The Science Museum
The Science Museum was definitely my favourite visit of the day, but I had been expecting that to begin with, because science museums have always been really enjoyable for me. There are always lots of neat little gadgets and displays to look at, and this was certainly no exception. As it was the end of the day and I didn't have a lot of time to spend in the museum, I evaluated my options and decided to prioritize the Information Age floor, since, again, a lot of the other subject matter on offer was the kind of thing I had already learned about in school and from other museums. Because of the poor lighting conditions, I wasn't able to get any pictures of the displays, but I had a great time checking out slide rules, counting machines, switchboards, early computers, and ERNIE, the famous random number generator. Back in the day, it (he?) was used to generate the winning numbers for Premium Bonds, and hopeful people would send letters and gifts to it (him?) to try to get their numbers picked. Another display that I really liked was a selection of early word processors and personal computers. As a bit of a computer geek, I loved looking at the earliest iterations of the PC. It really evokes a sense of wonder, thinking about these still-very-recent machines and comparing them to the powerful home computer I'm using to write this blog post. The last thing I looked at was a video display that told the story of the BBC's first international television broadcast. There were interviews with people who had worked on that broadcast, as well as clips from the little performances that each country came up with to show in the broadcast. Like the computer display, it really made me think about how recently the world was amazed by something as simple (by our standards) as being able to see a live broadcast from another country.
At 3pm, the museum observed a two-minute silence for VE Day, which made me happy because I think it's important to keep that kind of tradition alive. It was strange, but exciting, to think that I was observing this silence not so very far from Winston Churchill's war rooms. London is a place where a great many important historical events have come to pass, and you can almost feel it in the air there.
At closing time, I took the Tube back to Hammersmith, got another Tesco supper and happily settled back into my room pretty early in the evening. One of the joys of travelling alone is that you can simply call it a day when you get tired, and tired I was after all the walking I'd done in the past two days! There was something immensely satisfying about settling into bed to watch some TV, knowing the whole time that I was in London--really in London. I'd made it, spent a full day seeing the sights, and I still had a few more days to do whatever I liked, in a place I'd been dreaming of seeing for years.
Continue to Day 3
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