November 12 British Museum with Ralph

I am writing this from my East Point living room by the fire with Poesie at my feet and Ralph reading on the other sofa.  It's 4:33 p.m. on Friday, 12/19/14,  I went out at 9:30 to take Alberto and Kieko to the vet.  Kieko vomited some blood last night.  The vet found no evidence of a cause so prescribed things to calm and coat her esophagus and stomach.  Relieved greatly.  Alberto, Shana, and I sat and talked a while in their living room and then went to Ru San's for the buffet lunch and continued talking.  Ralph has been working upstairs.

November 12:

Today I met Ralph after his Wednesday Modern British Literature class.  We went to the British Museum which is on the Great Russell St. as is the FSU Study Center.  I can't even adequately describe what we saw.  We had lunch first at the pub on Tottenham Court so we hadn't a lot of time.  I went strolling around every where in this particular area we'd chosen and randomly read the info. provided.  I had been through briefly with Walt and it was almost equally wondrous this time.  It's always a little sad to return to a thing that at first inspired such awe.  It can't quite match the first glimpse.  But this came close.

Enormous sections of ancient buildings.  sculptures both of clay and plaster, enormous and small; sections of columns from, for instance, the column capital from the Temple of Athena, frescoes, etc.  I have photos posted here.  I may have mentioned before that one can't help but wonder why these things aren't located where they were intended.  And a few thoughts later, you think maybe they'd have been destroyed had they been left at their provenance.

I wonder that such ancient civilizations were so advanced.  I had no concept of this.  I knew Egypt was advanced.  I knew, of course, about Greece and Rome.  But about Sumeria and others?  No.  Had no idea.  (As an aside, I also was surprised at the London Museum by the advanced state, relatively, of some of their ancient creations.  If I remember correctly,  a good deal has been learned about this in relatively recent times--20th and 21st century during digging for tunnels, the tube, and uncovered while clearing WWII rubble)  I hope to read about these civilizations some time soon.  I find it hard to make time for this.  I tend to skip from one book to another which is no way to read.  I need to do this systematically.

Maybe I'll look at the photos and make some more remarks.  I had every intention, as did Ralph, of returning at least once to the British Museum.  Our prolonged stay was the perfect opportunity to take in a little at a time and stay fresh with it.  We tried but failed.  It closed at 5:30 promptly.