Tour of Parliment, The British Museum, and a traditional Enlgish dinner

On Monday we met at Parliament for my British Life and Culture class and we went on a two hour tour of Parliament. The Parliament building is not as old as I thought that it would be. It was built 150 years ago. We went to see the Queen's room, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The Queen or any other royalty are never allowed to go into the House of Commons. The House of Lords is filled with gold and has a throne for the Queen. The House of Commons is very plain and has no gold. Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take photos inside so I have none to post from my tour. After touring Parliament I went to The British Museum with my Art History class. Philippa took us around to show us some interesting stuff. The Rosetta Stone is at The British Museum, which is the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs. When the Egypt was ruled by other empires one of the Kings had a message put in three different languages put on a big piece of stone. Because Egyptian hieroglyphs was put with two other languages with the same message people were able to figure out hieroglyphics. I was also able to see some real mummies! It was a very interesting exhibit. The Egyptians also mummified animals so I was able to see a snake, bird, crocodile, and cat mummy. The 2012 Olympic Medals were also on display in the museum. My favorite thing that I saw was probably a tree that was made out of guns. It is called the Tree of Life, which was made after the Mozambique Civil War. The war lasted for almost 16 years and when the war was over the soldiers turned in their weapons. It is quite odd that the Tree of Life is made from weapons that killed so many people during the war.







Yesterday night, I came back to the flat and had to prepare a traditional English meal with my flat for Lyndon and his wife. We had spotted dick and toad in a hole. Spotted dick is almost like a cake and toad in a hole is sausage made in a dough. Lyndon and his wife came by each flat and sampled some of the meal. At the end they decided on a winner and my flat won! We got a bag of crisps and 4 different kinds of alcoholic drinks for a prize!


Today I had class with Rob and we learned about the Rolling Stones and a bunch of other rock n roll bands. For British Literature my teacher took us to the British Library where we saw real mauscripts from Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Beatles lyrics, and the Magna Carta.