London - day 2

We've been keeping so busy and getting home so late, I've already fallen behind!  Day 2 in London started with breakfast at the Priory Cafe, a tiny little place run by a couple from northern England, near where Tim is from.  Since they are both transplants from the north, they give each other a good hassle, just for fun.  After some eggs on toast, it was off to the tube station to explore central London a bit.  First stop, the Wellcome Trust and its science and medicine exhibits and library.  Lots of interesting stuff there, but the best ones were Charles Darwin's walking stick and a copy of the entire sequenced human genome, divided into volumes based on individual chromosomes.  We also saw a very early version of the x-ray machine and blown glass sculptures of swine flu, ebola, giardia, and MRSA.  (Yes, I know I'm a total science nerd!)


  Afterwards, we walked south to the British Museum - a huge exhibit of Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Greek, and Asian artifacts.  The museum houses the only remaining piece of the Rosetta Stone, unearthed by Napoleon's troops and the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Lots of mummies and sarcophagi, canopic jars, Greek and Roman statues, Japanese samurai armor, and much more.  From there, we continued south through the Soho neighborhood to the West End theater district, London's version of Broadway.  We happened upon the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child theater - the play runs in 2 parts and is still in previews this week, and we didn't have any free time to see it even if we could get tickets.  Still, it was exciting to see.  We did briefly check a bookshop to see if the book of the play came out earlier here than in the States, but no luck.

Since we hadn't really eaten a formal lunch (breakfast was relatively late), Kelli directed us to a little cake shop on a small side street where we purchased some Swedish princess cake and a bag of biscuits - yummy!  We sat on the steps outside Covent Gardens Market to eat our sweets until it started to rain briefly, which gave us chance to check out the shops inside.  One stall had 7 or 8 different types of shortbread - we picked out some peanut butter shortbread to bring home.  There was also rhubarb, lemon, and double chocolate - all the ones we sampled were very tasty!  Last stop on the way home was at King's Cross Station, since we were on the tube anyway, to see the Harry Potter shop and try to get our pictures taken with the Harry Potter trolley going through the wall to platform 9 3/4, but the line for photos was way too long and the shop was quite crowded.  We will try that again on Wednesday, as we have to go back to King's Cross to get to our train to Paris.