Last Day in London

This morning I worked my way down to Baker Street where I saw the Sherlock Holmes Museum.  Created at the address that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle listed as the residence of his famous detective and doctor (not that one) side-kick, it faithfully preserves a typical Victorian dwelling place.  It is fully furnished with authentic furniture from that era and is decorated with period antiques that were used as props in the series.  It was very interesting.

After that, I went to the Churchill War Cabinet Museum, located in the bunker from which Churchill commanded the British government during the war.  It was fascinating, as it contained much of the equipment and furniture from the war and had many testimonials from the people involved in the government and war effort who had lived and worked there during the Blitz and rest of the war.

I then met one of my favorite professors from the United States for lunch.  He is in London pricing out a new study abroad program which sounds very interesting and happy for Central Michigan University’s Study Abroad and Honors Programs.  The restaurant in which we dined was one of the structures that was built overtop the location where once stood the Globe Theater of William Shakespeare, fitting as the professor is in the English Department.

After lunch, I walked down Fleet Street.  It was at one point home of the British national newspapers, but the last one, Reuters, left that location in 2005.  A number of British writers used to frequent bars of the area and the street is also home to some publishers.  It is also the famous haunting grounds of the semi-mythical historical serial killer, Sweeney Todd, the “Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”  For those of you who are Dickens fans (and let’s be honest, at some level, we all are), it is the location of Tellson’s bank in A Tale of Two Cities and it is also mentioned in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. 

I then followed Drury Lane (sadly no signs of any pastry makers) to the British Museum.  It is an extensive collection of artifacts and sculpture from all over the British Colonial Empire.  It contains much of their Egyptian and Middle Eastern Collection, and many Greek sculptures and vases, including much of the statues and friezes of the Athenian Acropolis.  Apparantly the British diplomat to the Ottoman Empire had quietly stolen it all from the ruins of the structure before anyone had noticed.  The Greek government has repeatedly asked for it back, but the British government and the museum have continued to respond with polite “noes”.  Which is a shame, if you ask me, because much of the museum’s collection were taken from tombs and the resting places of ancient peoples, and it seems wrong to me to disturb their final resting places.  

Tomorrow I leave for Dublin.  Excitement ensues.