A trip to the Natural History Museum

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We headed off this morning to the Natural History Museum. All the museums and galleries here in London are free, which is really quite amazing, though it does lead to long lines.

The building that houses the Natural History Museum is quite stunning with intricate details and gargoyles consisting of animal heads rimming the roof level. Though there was quite a line up, we were quickly inside.

Coming in the front door, there is a huge dinosaur skeleton to great the visitor. The interior space seems to be huge and has interesting details such as carvings of monkeys lining the walls.

Benjamin needs to do some research for a art sculpture he is creating on a magical creature, so we started in the bird area where he took many photos as reference images.

Joshua is always interested in rocks, so our next stop was to tour the exhibits on the physical earth. The exhibit is beautifully set up with an escalator taking you up into the inside of a globe structure. Here there were some great displays on minerals and crystals that echoed much of the work Joshua has being doing for geography.

After this we toured some areas with details on plate tectonics and the tie in with both earthquakes and volcanoes. Having visited a volcano recently (Mount Vesuvius) and been in an earthquake zone, this was particularly relevant.

Next we went to see the mammal exhibit, including some very familiar looking stuffed raccoon, black bear, and a moose.

After stopping off at the gift shop, where Joshua picked up yet another stone for his collection, we headed back to apartment and did school work. After a dinner of pizza (not as good as Italy but better than then the one we had in France), I was able to get onto the internet and book a hotel for Dublin. We phoned Barbara to let her know that we would be there for Tuesday. Barbara also let me know that her stepson, Clive, wanted us to contact him in hope of seeing us.

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