The Dead and the Wish They Were Dead

Today was one of those days where we were supposed to do one thing, but ended up doing something else. The day started by me getting us on the wrong train. A trip to Oxford Circus to shop landed us in Piccadilly circus at a Bar to use the restroom. You know what it is like when you are cruising around Target and your kid has to pee...right NOW! Yeah, that was us on the TRAIN. Adessa had to wait until we got off at the wrong stop to find a public "toilet," which isn't easy to find. I sneaked her into the bar because the public toilet was closed. Bar vs. pee puddle? I choose bar.

After crying on the train, and while we were lost on the streets, and becoming ever so very frustrated, William decided it would be fun to pull my hair as I hauled him around in the backpack. Not cool Willie, not cool.

Our confusion landed us on the steps of the British Museum. The British Museum is hosting a big Egyptian "Book of the Dead" exhibit, but Adessa was only interested in seeing the dead....so was I. Straight to the mummies we went. This particular person was buried and preserved so well that you can still see the skin which is now like leather and the blondish curly hair on parts of the head. Where the skin is missing you can see the bones and you can also see the teeth. The pottery is what belonged to the man and what he chose to be buried with. Now you can picture me lying there spooning my Dyson can't you :)

This burial technique was like that of drying flowers. They put the person on a wicker basket and surrounded them with sand. This pretty much dried them up.

This was Adessa's favourite actual "mummy." I found it fascinating that they have the actual X-ray shown below the mummy with the bone structure perfectly in tact. Those Egyptians were pretty brilliant. Adessa liked this one because it is draped with a beaded net of turquoise, she thought it was pretty :)

I could have wandered around for hours, but William was still screaming and I was tired of ALL the dirty looks I had received all day long. It was off for home, that is if we could find our way home. We did, and of course at the end of our day William fell asleep on the train. The first piece of silence all day. In the end we saw the dead and by the time the day was over I wished I was dead, for a while. I think we will be heading back to the British Museum on Saturday to see the Book of the Dead and the Rosetta Stone. This time I will have John with me for directions and back-up.