Dave and I went to the British Museum today. I love the fact that it's free, just like the Smithsonian, and the array of objects is incredible. I saw the Rosetta Stone, a moai statue from Easter Island, an assortment of Roman, Viking, Frankish and other objects and coins from antiquity, and the artifacts from the ship burial at Sutton Hoo. The Rosetta Stone was especially neat to see -- much larger and blacker than I expected it to be.
Dave then shuttled home and I walked back, winding across the northern side of Hyde Park. I stopped in some charity shops, picked up a used Bill Bryson book for £3, and then picked up some live herbs for our kitchen windowsill. A couple of hours later I got to our doorstep. There is nothing, nothing, nothing better than getting out and walking around on a beautiful sunny day.
I noted on the New York Times website that the U.S. may be sliding into a recession again. This is one day after an article about the continually growing market for luxury goods, from Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and the like. Hmmmm...could it be that the rich are getting richer while the middle classes struggle? Attention global leaders: Your economic policies are ruinous, exacerbating the growing gulf between haves and have-nots! Down that path there be monsters!
(Photo: Rooftops at dusk, Notting Hill.)
Amen!
ReplyDeleteI thought about you yesterday as I was listening to the sound track from Notting Hill. My favorite scene in the movie is when they show the passage of time with the woman in the market - watching her pregnancy grow & then showing her with the baby...
The Rosetta Stone: how cool is that!?!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was an undergrad, I had a classics prof who had a replica of the Rosetta Stone hanging on a wall in his house. He had a party for students in a class I was taking, and one of my dimmer classmates asked my roommate and me what we were looking at on the wall. "It's the Rosetta stone," my roommate replied. The dim dude paused, looked at it closer, and said in all seriousness, "Whoa! How did Dr. O get it?!?"
Hooray for the American educational system! ;-)
Another recession? No, the same one, and yes, the middle class is still shrinking...the museum sounds great.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE LOVE LOVE the skyline shot. It is indeed bleak financial news we keep getting over here. No one is happy with what anyone else is doing to fix it and for the most part people seem to be caught up in a giant hamster wheel that goes nowhere. I am glad we have good government retirements because many people I know are feeling the pinch.
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