| The
French Consulate is across the street from the Museum of Natural History.
Every morning, a line of people appear, waiting for the opportunity to apply
for work visas. |
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| One
of the pillars for the gates around the Museum of Natural Science. Each
of the pillars had stone details; this one contains to scenes, one of a
cobra, and one of some birds. I was to discover that similar work was done
in the interior of the museum also. |
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| The
Museum of Natural history itself. I would've been interested in an architectural
tour of the building, because it is extremely lovely. |
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| This
is what greets you as you walk into the museum (well, except for the diplodocus
skeleton directly behind this point of view). |
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| A
triceratops skeleton, in the dinosaur wing of the Museum of Natural Science. |
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| A
skull of a tyrannosaurus beside a skull of a triceratops. Nice for comparative
value...wouldn't want to meet either in a dark alley, though. |
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| The
Hall of Mammals. That's an elephant, a rhinoceros, a blue whale, and between
the whale and the rhino, a manatee. I didn't get the giraffe into the picture,
sadly. |
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| The
Mineral Gallery. I have to admit I took this picture more for the architectural
aspects of this wing rather than any special rocks, though at the end of
aisle was a very nice display abuout meteorites. |
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| There
were no flat surfaces in the lobby and main wings of the Museum. This is
a view of the same lobby pictured above, but this is from the advantage
of the third floor. What in the world is on those arches? |
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| They're
monkeys! The whole building is filled with carved monkeys climbing the walls! |
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| Despite
the thrill of seeing the monkeys, I knew I had started in the wrong museum
when I entered this, the Transportation Wing of the Science Museum. It's
a couple of airplanes and a wall full of minis back there. And that big
black thing in the foreground is a locomotive engine. |
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| The
inner workings of a V-2 rocket. |
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| Apollo
10 is on loan to the Science Museum from the Smithsonian. |
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| The
Black Arrow is the only successful rocket launched by the UK. This is a
rocket of the same class, with its nose opened to deply the satellite in
the foreground. |
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| One
of the rooms in the Science Museum is named "Making the Modern World."
I thought of it as the Big Engine Room. This is the showpiece of the room,
a working mill engine. Notice the six-foot or so man on the left to get
an idea of the size. |
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| As
I walked back to the hotel, I walked past the Albert Memorial. This is a
much better idea of what it looks like and you can see all the goldwork. |
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| A
closeup of the gold-plated statue of Albert within the memorial. No, I didn't
climb the memorial; I'm very pleased with the closeup abilities of my digital
camera. |
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| A
better picture of Royal Albert Hall, one that gives a better idea of its
shape and size. We only missed the Moody Blues by a couple of weeks, darn
it. |
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| So,
with all the parks and green in London, what do you do with it? Within about
30 feet of the sidewalk surrounding the Albert Memorial, I found a girls'
PE class from some nearby school. Another reason I love London; the mundane
and the amazing are mixed liberally. |
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