Droplets of Amber: History 101

Thursday, July 12, 2012

History 101

In school, you grow up learning and hearing about all these scholars and geniuses who all seem far away and in a distant land. To see actual works from them, many of them with their handwriting, doodles and notes, brings it to life. Today at the British Library in the Sr. John Rirblat Gallery I saw many treasures of history. I saw manuscripts and journals from Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Mozart there was the earliest version of Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's tuning fork and works, an autographed manuscript of Mendelssohn Wedding March, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks and notes or arithmetic and lastly, the Magna Carta. Can you believe it? All it one exhibit. It was amazing to walk around and see all these pieces from the historical heroes.
After exploring this wonderful exhibit we made our way to the Tower Bridge. It was all decked out with the Olympic rings and everything! It is a lot different than what I expected. Which is weird because it is so iconic. But it had painted railings and it was just a lot bigger than I expected. And fancy. We walked across the bridge to the other side and walked along the river a bit. After that stop we made our way to Camden Market! It was so fun. Minus the fact it started raining. (I knew the sun wouldn't last!) This market has a fun vibe. And if you go at a good time the food vendors often offer free samples. How could you say no to free! The day was ended with a cupcake from Hummingbird Bakery. Yum yum yum. I got the flavor of the day which was a Jelly Jammer cupcake. It was a vanilla cupcake with strawberry filling. It is based off some cookie they have here. It was delicious. I have had cupcakes in many famous places and this one was right up there with the big dogs.
We are all now sitting here in our kitchen, typing away on our computers, watching American TV, and listening to the rain outside our window. I love my life.