For my third (and final) blog post, I finally get to write about London! Yay! Today was one filled with museums. For the first time, the full group was separated into the two classes. While the theatre students toured the National Theatre, the literature students headed to the Charles Dickens Museum. I was looking forward to seeing this museum as I've read quite a bit of Dickens' work, including A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and, of course, Oliver Twist.
The Dickens Museum is actually what used to be the Dickens's family home, located at 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury. It was a unique experience to get to be in the same place once owned by such a famous author. We were able to see all five floors and all rooms of the house, including the dining room, the drawing room, the bedrooms, and Dickens's study. Probably my favorite part of the museum was seeing Dickens's desk, where he wrote many of his later works, as well as a page from the original draft of Oliver Twist! One thing I learned was that he was a fan of the novel Robinson Crusoe, which may have inspired his love of travel. In his lifetime, he traveled to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, and twice to America.
After viewing the museum, we had ample time to sit the garden behind the house and enjoy some food and drinks from the café. I had cream tea for the first time, which came with a fruit scone with clotted cream and jam. It was delicious! I wasn't planning on it, but I ended up drinking the whole pot of tea. Finally, we met up with the theatre students at the British Museum, where we were tasked with finding the top ten artifacts from our Top Ten London 2019 book.
These artifacts were the Parthenon Sculptures, the mummified cats, the Ram in a Thicket ornament, a double-headed serpent mosaic, the Rosetta Stone, the Portland Vase, a stone lintel, Mildenhall treasure, Ramesses II, and the Mask of the Nulthamalth. One thing I found intriguing is that there is some controversy surrounding the British Museum's possession of some of the Parthenon Sculptures, as Greece's government has advocated that all of the sculptures should be located in Athens.
Although we still have a little under a week left of the trip, this will be my last post, so I just wanted to say thank you for following along with our journey! This is Alyssa Luukkonen, signing off.
Sounds wonderful! And the cream tea! I gotta try that someday:-)
ReplyDeleteThough I loved our tour of the National Theatre, I was jealous you all went to the Charles Dickens Museum! I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school, and it is still one of my favorites. It’s cool you were able to see so much of the building as often it seems only a few rooms are available.
ReplyDeleteI was unsure about clotted cream as the name seems so odd, but it is delicious!
Glad you enjoyed your day!
Hey!! I loved going to Dickens's house. Although it was slightly sad to be separated into two, it was definitely a highlight of this trip. It was very interesting to connect the fact that a book we had read had been written by someone who although is gone, had lived in that house. I was completely in awe.
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