Day Nine, the Mega Truck

On the way to the Lion King, Ben was impressed by this "Mega" (it says so on the door!) truck. It looked like a toy, but I assume it was a real, operational vehicle!

Ben enjoyed the Lion King a lot. I asked for a review and he said, "It was good." Really, he said that he enjoyed it a lot. Auntie, on the other hand, regretted not going to see Wicked again . . . so we are going to see it on Wednesday.

On Friday morning, we started out the rainy day looking for the entrance to the Hunterian Museum. It was supposed to be "easy" to find, near the Soane Musuem, which we spotted right away. However, it was raining, and the numbers were not visible on all the buildings. Eventually, we found our way there, but not before getting thoroughly soaked.

The museum is large and covers two floors of the Royal College of Surgeons Building. John Hunter was an 18th century surgeon who devoted a great deal of time to studying anatomy. He was also interested in collecting specimens of plants, animals and humans for research and study. His collection was enlarged over the years, but much of it was unfortunately destroyed by bombing during World War II. However, a great deal of it remains, and it shows the amazing dedication of Hunter and his unbelievable curiosity about the natural world.

There were jars upon jars of specimens, and there seemed to be no explanation for how they were arranged. There would be a shelf of skulls showing dental problems, followed by a shelf of lizards, followed by a shelf of excised skin showing smallpox lesions. It was generally fascinating and not really gruesome. There were also skeletons from a giant and a tiny girl which were preserved next to more "normal" sized skeletons. Modern and older medical instruments were also displayed and explained. Unfortunately, we did not have time to study everything thoroughly. It was a very interesting morning, and best of all, FREE!

We next headed to the Globe Theatre to see Romeo and Juliet. I had purchased tickets to stand in front of the stage, so that we could experience what it would be like to be "groundlings." Ben said he would have enjoyed it more if he could have sat down. Obviously, he didn't really understand the "grounding" concept . . . It was interesting to be so close to the actors. Also, they would occasionally leave the stage and walk through the audience. The nurse was funny and the blood looked very real!

I took some video inside the theatre before the show started. Unfortunately, the sound is a bit noisy, because we were surrounded by school kids:

Some musicians came out before the play started and performed a few songs. Here is a short snippet:

After the Globe, we headed to the BBC to see the filming of a new series called, "We Are Klang." It was set in the fictional town of Klangbury, and concerned three incompetent councilmen who are desperately trying to bring in tourists to keep their town from being absorbed by a more successful local town. This performance required a lot of audience participation. There was a "warm up" comedian who continually walked around the audience between breaks in the filming. The entire process lasted nearly 3 hours. It will be interesting to see what the final product looks like!

Tomorrow we are off to Wales!