Tuesday.....

Siobhan and I made our way towards the Natural History Museum today. Joyce mentioned this was a place not to be missed(thanks Joyce!!), the building itself is just as mesmerizing as what was inside. It is in a pretty posh neighhorhood and outside the museum were the tents that were just used for London Fashion week (i know theres a few of you...) The exhibits were displayed really well and there was alot to see.

As you know, I have an interest in bones, skulls and skeletons so to see a turtle speciman spliced in half was a favorite for me. Some people think its a bit creepy but were all made up of bones right? Bones and stones.......
In Earth's Treasury I saw some beautiful stones.... I used to collect stones as a child and am still fascinated by them. Just a nerd at heart........ My favorite exhibit was called Plant Power, which highlighted plants that played a part in human development. This was the gourd, coal, coal, silk, poppy, wheat, yam, oak, cotton, algae, sugar, cinchona (used for malaria), lichen, rose, potato, papyrus, grape, tea, and rubber. I was reminded (some i remember from Germany) that lichens are very sensitive to acid rain, car fumes, fluorides, zinc, nickel, mercury and other pollutions. If you measure and compare the distributions of lichen in different areas you can measure the extent of pollution in the atmoshphere. The more lichen, the cleaner the area.

Some cheeky street art found on a side street....
We also went to see a Dali exhibit, with a small Picasso show included, which had some interesting pieces i had not seen yet. I have studied the Surrealists and the Dadaists and their movements for a long time. This statue of one of Dali's elephants was placed in front of the exhibit and looked like it was stepping through the Parliament Building though the Thames was between them.