British Museum

With all love and respect to the tee-total-riffic Smithsonian - it's a wannabe poser. I'll still love it, but not as much now that I've seen the truth. Tuesday, Blaine and I went to the museum that the Smithsonian wants to be when it grows up: the British Museum. The museum itself is free, huge, and overwhelming and that's before you add in the special exhibits like the Terracotta Chinese guys. We planned a whole day there (even though Blaine suggested adding in various London items - it didn't happen) and followed the plan. It was only when we got to town that we discovered that their "big" special exhibit was items from the burial "mound" (HA! just a mound!) of the First Emperor.

However, they limit ticket sales and the first available time for us was 3:20 p.m. which became a non-issue on the whole day there plan. We saw mummies and the Saxon Hoo treasure and the Elgin marbles (thief or saviour - you be the judge) and the Enlightment stuff and all sorts of rugs, textiles, jewelry, stuff and even Harry Potter coins in the money room. We hit cool things meltdown about 2:30 and were tired of the Eygptians and mummies and things that make you hmmm or awe. That gave us time to grab museum lunch (Brie for lunch in a museum cafeteria - cool!) before we hit the Terracotta dudes.

Blaine is the one that really wanted to see this event and I'm glad he did - it's was incredible and worth the price of admission. (Oh yeah, some special exhibits are for pay at EVERY "free" musuem) What a 13 year old accomplished is insane - JUST his burial mound inlcluded hundreds of figures including an army, in formation, of terracotta guys, some even still having their original paint and individual faces. And the First Emperor forced his guys to invent crossbow and chariot interchangeable parts CENTURIES before Eli Whitney pretended to be the first to apply it. So there!! Unfortunately, this particular exhibit was a no photo zone (grrrr!) and the sneaky phone camera guy's image (that's Blaine's no photo nick) is too blurry to post.

Get thee to the British Museum! I'll leave you with my favorite Blaine photo from the British Museum - I bet you guys will like it too (for those that haven't been to the flickr acct - it's posted there too).