It really isn't fair. Londoners have so many wonderful museums! Even the ones I'm not expecting to spend much time in, like the Science Museum (distinct from the Natural History Museum, which it's next door to) turn out to be fabulous places that take hours and hours to explore!
Above on the left is a look at its central court, off of which, on these different levels, they have neat thematic galleries. Like "Materials," where I took the interesting photo on the right. You may not be able to tell from this, but its a sort of collage/sandwich/amazing piece of art made from hundreds of different materials glued together in sheets. (And, of course, there's a display that will tell you what each one of the layers is, should you be interested in finding that out!)
But what's overwhelming about the Museum is that beyond the central
court there are more enormous galleries. One on flight, for example, which I didn't spend too much time in because of my many visits to Washington's Air and Space Museum—and I realized right away that I was going to have to prioritize my time rather ruthlessly. But I did take this picture at the left, just to give you an idea of the scope of the gallery. These are airplane engines, scores of them, all along one wall. Another gallery, double-deckered and as long as a couple of football fields, featured nothing but ship models!Another gallery I enjoyed, although I didn't understand much of it (their explanations are
definitely not watered down for non-experts) was the one concerned with the history of mathematics. It was full of lovely representations of mathematical concepts, such as this case, on the right, full of colorful polyhedra. And along the opposite side of this gallery hall was a history of 
computers, equally fascinating, if not quite as esthetically pleasing.Although I really enjoyed seeing the collection of George III's scientific instruments (not much of a foreign policy whiz, at least when it came to holding onto colonies, but he was a great collector of beautiful instrumentation!)—represented here on the left by this portable sundial—I probably should have passed on some of these minor galleries and had more time for the big boys on the main floor
. Tip for visitors to this museum: take in the "Making of the Modern World" first, so you won't be too tired (as I almost was) to appreciate such displays as this cool collection of VW bugs on the wall, at the right. This is a great example of how the Museum uses humor and a great visual sense, as well as their interesting verbal commentaries, to display their material in a really unforgettable way. All of the London museums I've visited do such a wonderful job with their displays—I'm afraid I've become very spoiled by it.Bleary-eyed and staggering, suffering from a near-terminal case of being museumed-out, I managed to hold on long enough to walk through the great displays in the basement, which deal with the history of the home—appliances, heating and cooling, sanitation, etc. It was great! Here's just one of the fascinating displays. I've always thought old sewing machines were things of beauty, but several of these elegant models were new to me.
Getting home at 5 instead of 3, as I'd estimated, I didn't get as much paper-grading done last night as I'd planned. But the trade-off was more than worth it. This was my last big museum, checked off the list. My time in London really is running down to the last grains in the hourglass!
