London -- Sept. 11, 2010

Finally left the room at 10 a.m. only to find the Gloucester Road tube station a mess. Two of the machines for tickets (the only ones taking cash) were out of order so lines for tickets were very long. Luckily, I have a credit card and the knowledge, based on experience, that one of those machines typically has a short line; so got on my way fairly quickly. Off to the British Museum.
Spent about 3 hours exploring the museum -- as much as one can in that time. I saw the Rosetta Stone (again) because it interests me -- and is right off the main entry in a glass case dominating everything! Other than that I tried to follow and find as many of the objects as I could that were included in the partially completed BBC Radio program: "History of the World in 100 Objects." They're now through item 70; the program resumes shortly with the 100th object being revealed in late October. It provides an interesting way to check out the variety of items in the British Museum. This head from Easter Island was #70 on the list. Guess I'll have to check the BBC web site to learn what the last 30 items are. . . .

After 3 hours of standing and walking on marble floors, I was ready to sit. So I took the tube to Embankment, hopped on the circular Thames boat trip, and spent an hour looking the easy way. Although I didn't see much new, the perspective was different -- and I was off my feet! As we went down river to the Tower of London and then back up to Westminster,

had a nice view of Tower Bridge

and of the London Eye (I rode on it six years ago)

and of the building which up to just a couple of years ago served as the city's fish market.


Returned to the hotel room briefly to change clothes and head out for the theater. I'd gotten a ticket for a preview performance of a new play at the National Theater. The exterior of the theater building is concrete ugliness (in my opinion) and the interior is a bit worn and tatty. But they put on interesting plays.

Blood and Gifts is a new play about Afghanistan during the years of the Soviet invasion. It's mainly from a U.S. perspective but also has a British element. At the end, as the CIA's Afghan partner has become firmly anti-American and shouting about Allah, I got a chill -- today is, after all, 9/11.