Day 8: Emory Rocks

When I was planning my trip to London the very very last thing I expected was to hang out with people from Emory. I didn't know any of them and my opinion of a lot of people from my school is not good. To my pleasant suprise I have been spending a lot of time with the Emory people who I've met here, and they are all pretty awesome. (Which is not to say I haven't met or hung out with people from other places, for example I have plans to go to Oxford with my roomate who is from the Phillipines).
Yesterday I was running around frantically trying to get my classes in order (with little success) when I ran into some cool people who invited me to the British Museum with them. I love the British Museum, it is amazing. It is stuffed full of unimaginable treasures from ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, ancient everywhere actually. And the place is enormous, I am not sure I will even be able to get through all of it during my time here. Luckily it is just a few blocks from my school, so I will be visiting quite a bit I think (lucky for me also that most of the british museums are free). Yesterday we really just made it through the headliners: the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Maosoleum of Helikoneses (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world actually!) I've seen all these things before but they are still amazing to me. And it also amazes me that they let you get so close to things and even take pictures. At the top here is a picture of me in front of a giant ancient mesopotamian horse man.
I haven't seen most of the museum but I did stumble onto what I am pretty sure will be my favorite room. The museums reading room is in the very center of the building and is this huge circular hall full of books. This is where they kept the national library until it was move into its own building. On the walls closest to the doors was a display showing all of the famous people who used to come here to read. It was essentially a whose who of British literature: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Yeats, Shaw, Hughes, Kipling, Forster, Welles. When they were exiles living in London Lenin and Trotsky would hang out here. Needless to say I was impressed. I think it is possible for anyone to come here and study so hopefully at some point I will come down and read with the Greats.
In the evening there was an Emory sponsored dinner event. Emory has an on site coordinator who plans cultural and historical events for the students who are here. We have some trips to stately homes, an overnight to Dover, theater visits etc. And it is all payed for by Emory, so I intend to take advantage as much as possible. We got to the restaurant a good 45 minutes early so we decided to walk around a bit. This is why I love London so much, all we did was walk around the block and we saw:
- The oldest surviving church in London, Saint Bartholomeus which is in the picture. This is Greater St. Barts but there was also a Lesser St. Barts in the circle which was actually a hospital and a church
-A private party for what looked like an actual Lord, in full regalia.
- The square where William Wallace (the scottish guy, from Braveheart) was drawn and quarted almost a thousand years ago. It is also where they used to burn Catholics at the stake and do all manners of executions. There was this great little pub called the Hand and Shears: last ale before the executioners. Also saw this interesting piece of public graffiti, I think it is supposed to be the queen, I'm not quite sure what the message being sent is, I just thought it was cool.
Dinner was excellent. It was at an Italian restaurant called Carluccios. Like I said, it was payed for by Emory so everyone went full out. I had an appetizer, steak and gelato for dessert. And quite a bit of wine. Everyone had quite a bit of wine, which made things even friendlier. There are about 25 of us studying in London, I didn't get to meet everyone but most of the people I did were very nice. By the end of the night I had an invitation to a club, plans for later on tonight, a potential trip to Bath lined up for Thursday and very very tentative plans to go to Rome. After dinner a bunch of us went out to a pub, but we had to turn it in early, as everything closes around here by midnight. I am so excited though, for all the potential fun there is to be had here!!! I just know three months isn't going to be nearly enough...