7th day / 20th Jan: Museum of Natural History

[ all pictures from this day: http://picasaweb.google.com/110144623598348247797/20110120?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLsx8ubgfq2cg# ]

This day I woke again to the hammering in the room above (they're refurbishing some part of the hostel) and feeling a little more sick. A cold or something.

I was moving hostels today.

I went downstairs for breakfast and had a conversation with Johnny from Virginia and a girl he was sitting with who is from Perth. He was talking about his theories on what Stonehenge was built for. He thinks that the alignment, coinciding with equinoxes, and stars etc, came about due to the builder's sensitivity to the energy of the universe. Also that the stones are actually crystals, that have a kind of non-crystal appearance due to stuff that's grown on the outside, and that the crystals and the energy of the alignment acted as a kind of hospital, which is what the original purpose for stonehenge was. He said that it was hard to believe the builders figured it out in a more scientific way, since they didn't have as good maths. Interesting theory, but I had to point out a few simple methods they could have used, and also that equinoxes etc would be fairly central to the life of those people, relying on harvests etc. He agreed that was an astute point. He also got the girl and I to do a hand thing with him where we'd hold our hands up almost touching but not quite and then move them back and forth so that we'd feel some kind of energy. I agree there was some kind of sensation, which was interesting. But I wouldn't put it down to cosmic energy straight away. Johnny got my email as I left. He's a nice guy. I hope he goes well in his journeys.

After breakfast I headed off to the next hostel. I was happy to be going to a new place.

The street, from the front of the new (third) hostel.

Me, feeling pretty ill / fatigued but happy to be at this place.

The hostel I'm staying in. Lovely building. This is on Queen's Gate Street in South Kensington.

I got to the hostel at about 11:30 and had to wait until 2pm before I could check in. The Natural History Museum is just a few minutes walk down the road so I decided to check that out while I waited. It's free entry, like all the museums and galleries I've been in so far. Hooray!

This is the first bit of Tyranosaurus Rex that they found.

This is an animatronic Tyranosaurus rex. It was quite realistic actually. It was good.

I checked out the dinosaur section first. It was pretty good. Then I walked through another section that was a big concrete egg shaped thing. The displays were pretty interesting. I usually get a bit bored at museums with info signs everywhere, but this one was alright.

Then a lady told me that they have a talk happening soon, given by a professor from some university. This talk was about the floods in Australia and Brazil. I thought that'd be interesting, so I went. It wasn't all that interesting. It was all pretty standard information, but I guess there's not much you can do with the topic. The amazing thing about this talk, is that while the Australian flood was mentioned, the word "inundated" was not mentioned once!

I was feeling very fatigued. So I went to Sainsbury's before the hostel. Bought an epic feast of three microwaved meals (macaroni cheese, bolognaise pasta bake, and vegetable lasagne), and a chunk of bread. Then headed to the hostel and checked in.

The food markets look almost identical to ours. Only the mangoes are dark green, they sell alcohol, they have a functioning chemist inside, and they sell rock band on the wii and xbox for something like 40 pounds with guitar included (some kind of good price, anyway).

These Astin Martin Vantages are everywhere! It might help that this is a fancy area.

Staircase inside hostel

Looking down at all the steps I had to come up. 2nd floor. I carried a 20kg suitcase up here while pretty fatigued with a cold. Epic effort.

The room. It's empty when I get here, but it filled up by the end of the day. Two from Philadelphia, two from some eastern european place I guess from the accent, and one I have no idea of.

This room has a toilet inside!

View from the room! Pretty nice. This is from the second floor. Looking south.

View looking north. At the end that is Hyde Park.

My "epic" feast. Not all that healthy really, but I can't be bothered cooking anything...

At some point I realised I was getting sick and that I should probably take some medicine for it. So I walked to the supermarket and got some cold stuff. Then I went to sleep. Early night.