British Museum and National Gallery.

I was unprepared to have been so prepared yesterday and so had nothing to do today so I went and played tourist (see last blog). For some unknown reason, I hadn’t managed to get to either the British Museum nor the National Gallery last time I was here, so decided to tick a few more boxes with those two.

To be honest, the only reason I wanted to go to the Brit Museum was for something called the reading room – a huge circular library. Anyone who knows me knows my predilection for books and anything resembling a book shop or library. So imagine my disappointment on getting to the museum to find it was being used as and exhibition space which cost money to get into and that all the books had been removed for the duration anyway so there really was no point in me seeing it. I wandered around semi-aimlessly for a while and saw some of the other displays. I did like seeing the Rosetta stone and some of the medieval stuff was very cool – especially the swords. But I kind of felt let down after that.

The National Gallery was beautiful though, if a tad stuffy – one felt like a child that had to be constantly reminded of good behaviour. I got told off ‘cause I didn’t turn off my mobile and someone had the indecency to ring me. Gah! No photos allowed either which was annoying. All due reverence to the institution but I found that my jet lag didn’t really permit me to enjoy it much.

So my day was a little lacking. I can probably put it down to tiredness too, but there were also an awful lot of people around. This was due to a bank holiday I had failed to get wind of but I was pretty unhappy and quite annoyed at having to push my way through a whole load of Muppets.

Ah well. Next time better luck.