Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Believe it or Not!

Day 503
I was up early and packed and put my things in storage for the day. After some internet time I headed back to the Thai Airways office. I was happy to see that they had cash for me and I felt suddenly flush. I also had a few hours left to kill and some things that I wanted to see.

J.W. Waterhouse has long been one of my favorite artists. Unfortunately not many of his paintings are in public collections. I've only managed to see about five of his pieces in person, many more are familiar to me thru books and the internet. The largest collection of Waterhouses work ever assembled together was currently being held at the Royal Academy of Arts.

The exhibit was amazing. My favorite, the Lady of Shallot, was there it's usually at the Tate Britain. As so many of the paintings were from private collections I felt really privileged to see them. Marianne and Tristam and Isolde were among those. It was really amazing. I couldn't believe my good timing.

Next up was the rather new Ripleys Believe it or Not Museum, well, odditorium. I hesitated a bit at the price and that was enough for me to run into a family of three with 2 buy one get one free tickets, they needed a fourth person to get the lower price for their daughter. I happily obliged and paid for half of a ticket. The museum was very new and very well done, it looked really really good.

The smallest road legal car in the world was there as well as an American them ed mini-cooper. There were several multi-limbed animals and a collection of people who can make really weird faces. There was a bottle of beer brewed using yeast found in an Egyptian tomb and lint sushi. I also learned that the word Yankee came from the Indians mispronouncing the word English. Also that Lancaster, PA was the US capital for one day on September 27, 1777.

When I had finished with the museum I grabbed lunch at Yo Sushi! and then headed back. I had a little bit of internet time before grabbing my things and heading to the airport. I hadn't checked my flight time and ended up there about 40 minutes earlier than I needed to be. I passed the time planning and reading. Soon enough my flight to Bratislava took off. I was picking up just where I had left off 8 months before.

When the plane landed everyone cheered. I couldn't figure out why, there wasn't any turbulence or anything like that. Immigration was a breeze and soon I was on my way to the hostel. I was pretty lucky because I made the last bus and the last tram of the day. Once in the hostel I checked in and then checked my email before calling it a night.

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