23 05 London, England

We left Paris late Monday morning, traveled by the incredibly fast Eurostar train through the Chunnel (the tunnel that runs beneath the English Channel). We arrive in London and haphazardly make our way through the London Underground and to St. Margaret's Hotel where we will be staying for the rest of the trip. After we drop off our luggage the group went to the British Museum which is another overwelmingly large museum, much like the Louvre. This museum contains some important things to our journey such as the Elgin Marbles which are the marble reliefs that were found to have been lining the upper walls of the Parthenon, the Rosetta Stone which was the stone found in Alexandria, Egypt and was used to decode the Hieroglyphic language. This museum contained more Egyptian, Greek, Italian art and artifacts that we had seen a lot of. But there were some new things such as the East Asian and African Rooms, Artifacts pertaining to British History, and who can forget the Lindow Man whose body was preserved in acidic peat moss since the 1700s (?). That night many of us went to see some great musicals and shows including Les Miserables, Some Girl(s) (With David Schwimmer), and We Will Rock You. I think most of us can agree that it is really nice being back in a country where we can understand the language!!


Outside the British Museum: This museum holds many interesting things, including the Rosetta stone, the Elgin marbles and also the Lindow man.


The Elgin Marbles: These were taken from the Parthenon in Athens. There is controversy over who should have the rights to these marbles.


The Elgin Marbles up close.


The Rosetta Stone, discovered by Napoleon's troops in 1799 near the Nile Delta town of Rosetta (modern Rashid): The Rosetta stone had three languages on it: hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek, which allowed the hieroglyphs to be deciphered by Jean-Francois Champollion in 1822. This is a very important piece that has allowed us to understand hieroglyphics.


Lindow Man was found in 1985 in an English bog, but had been preserved there for centuries. The story is quite incredible and all of the biology majors loved it!


Lindow Man explained.


Big Ben at night. We got to the clock just as it was chiming for 11 o'clock. It was simply beautiful with all of the lights.


We also saw Westminster Abbey, which was across the street from Big Ben. It too was very beautiful with all of the lights.


Aaron, Dane, Baret, Jen, Katie, Kevin and Lindsey at a night out to see Neil LaBute's latest play Some Girl(s), with David Schwimmer making his West End debut! It was fantastic!


Though we couldn't get a great shot of Mr. Schwimmer, this is the best that we could get. He was about five feet away from us and Lindsey even got his autograph!

Math May Seminar, Pictures 2005