Saturday night – Around London

Today was our last full day around London. We’d talked about checking out some science venues either in Cambridge or Oxford.. but the logistics of getting out of town sounded like too much to take on.. and we still had much we wanted to see in London. We specifically wanted to see the natural history museum.. which turned out to be a very good choice !

We got there around 10 AM and began exploring. The museum building itself is amazing… every nook and corner had things to see.

We started by looking at all the animal stuff.. including the evidence that Darwin used to arrive at his theories on evolution.

Then we headed to the minerals.. they had rooms and rooms (and rooms) of mineral displays, including a ‘herkimer diamond’.. a kind of quarts that diane has on her necklace.

then some dinosaurs !.. an amazing collection !

We spent about a half a day at the Museum of Natural History.. we took off from there to check out the Welcomme (yes … two ‘M’s” ) across town..we ran into a guy playing a flaming tuba !

The Welcomme collection was quite different than we expected. It was an eclectic collection of human health exhibits.. it was very political.. most of the displays had to do with inequity.. .. it was cool.. but more politicalized than I liked. It was very well thought out.. there was a big display about the inequities of Milk.. including the false health claims over the years… and even how milk was used in some antisemitic and racists protests.. because many folks like Ashkenazi jews (like me) and Blacks cant drink milk comfortably.. Pretty unsettling stuff.. but well curated !

Upstairs there was a reading room with more interesting and disturbing stuff. Like the story of thalidomide babies and the way England tried to ‘normalize’ their deformities.. and the story of Henrietta Lacks

It was getting late.. and we were hungry at that point.. Luckily a good friend of ours from the US , Sam Brehm, had seen Gabe’s Instagram and new we were in town. Sam was in our Sam’s grade and had bene a frequent visitor to our house.. She’s in London teaching at am international school after getting a masters in language education from Oxford. She’s about to go back for her PhD in the same topic. Sam lives in South London. .> We met her at a really nice pub and ate soem great Pub food.. which was on our list to eat !

From the pub.. we took a really great walk down the southbank of the THames.. and over towards where we were staying. Sam was a great tour guide. It was SO great to see her !