Tate Modern

After ducking out of the parade, we popped over to the Tate Modern to see artwork from the 20th century. Since modern art really isn't our thing (the Tate Modern was one of the only things open on New Year's Day in the area we were in), we decided to take one of the free introductory tours. Our tour took us through the Idea and Object wing and focused on the artists Martin Creed and Carl Andre. It was a nice look into minimalist art and helped us understand the thoughts and ideas behind it. On the way out we poked our heads into the Materials Gestures exhibit to see one of Monet's beautiful paintings, Water-Lilies.

Arrival in London and The British Museum

We arrived in London on Saturday morning via one of London's five (5!) international airports. After dropping our stuff at our hostel and risking mad cow disease with a hamburger lunch, we were off to the British Museum. The British Museum houses an awesome collection of artifacts from around the world. At right is the Great Court at the British Museum, which is beautiful, though when you visit in real life there are about 500 times as many people.

Among the many artifacts we saw were the Rosetta Stone (among an already fantastic collection of Egyptian artifacts) and the Elgin Marbles (a collection of Greek sculptures, many of which originated on the Parthenon). The Rosetta Stone, you probably remember, features the same passage written in three languages - two Egyptian scripts and Greek. The French discovered it in Egypt in 1799 after Napoleon's conquest the year before and it ended up in British hands shortly after they defeated the French in Alexandria in 1801. It has been on display at the British Museum since 1802. I'll leave the history of the Elgin Marbles to you, but do want to mention that there's a long-time, still-ongoing dispute between Britain and Greece about the Elgin Marbles. (The conclusion is this: the British have them, so that means they're winning.)