Friday had no specific plans aside from the play that evening. We decided to do one of the things on my list and see the British Museum in the morning.

Yep. The British Museum.

I mostly wanted to see the Greek things, but we went through the Minoan section first, which was also good. They had a bull-leaper statuette!

Masks.

A reconstructed tomb, though I didn't see whose. There was a group who kept standing right in front of it, taking pictures of each other.

The Parthenon Room was the thing I really wanted to see. Ever since college, I've loved Greek sculpture and art, and I'd always hoped to see these pieces. And here they are. These are frieze pieces from the outer sides.

Centaur and human fight scenes.

More friezes. The second one really drew my eye; it's said to have inspired a line from Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn.

The famous figures from the front pediment of the Parthenon. Sadly, Hera and Zeus were destroyed when the temple changed hands and became a mosque. (There were a bunch of schoolkids there, drawing the figures. How cool.)

More of the centaur-human fight scenes.

Rear view of the pediment figures.

A few more frieze stones.

Aphrodite!

Another sculpture of Aphrodite at her bath.

This bronze is thought to be Alexander the Great.

Pure gold oak leaf wreath.

Seal-stones in a variety of gems and minerals.

I loved this statue of a child lacing his sandals.

From the Mauseoleum of Halikarnassos -- I think the first mausoleum, named for King Mausolus. The statues of Mausolus and Artemisia were flipping enormous, by the way.

Another very large piece, this horse still has its original bronze bridle.

A bronze cat statue from the Egyptian section.

In the main court was this beautiful statue.

A reproduction of the Rosetta Stone in the Enlightenment section. We probably walked by the original one without realizing it, since it was in the same area as the cat statue above.

Minerva, the Roman version of Athena.

After the Museum, we walked on down Shaftesbury to Forbidden Planet, another place I wanted to see. It's a legendary comic book store. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to expectation, but it was pretty darn cool.

We took a bus back to the Tube, and on the way, we passed Chinatown, so I got a picture.

Touristy shot of an Underground sign. Just because.

Finally, one last shot from the hotel room window, with better sky this time.