Church of St. Martin in the Fields

This is me in Trafalger Square, the building behind me is the beautiful church St. Martin's in the Fields, where wonderful concerts are held. Sorry about the horizontal format, I forgot to change it before uploading! I had hoped to go to a concert there tonight (Friday), but it looks like that's not going to happen. Once again, it's been a long day of walking and standing on marble floors.

We began our day at the British Museum, which is just around the corner from our hotel. Peter's colleague J.D. Hill had given us tickets for the current special exhibit at the BM - Moctezuma - Aztec Ruler. So, right after finishing breakfast we hopped over, getting to the exhibit just as it opened. Once again, this was a bittersweet exhibit, as it showed some amazing objects in the context of a tragic conquest of a highly developed society, that was deemed 'primitive' by the conquerors - in this case the Spanish under Cortes. This exhibit certainly didn't portray the Aztec (properly known as the Mexica) as peace-loving, gentle people, but in the context of their society the bloodly human sacrifices to which they were prone, were understandable. In some ways the saddest thing was the fact that a big part of the Spanish success was that they introduced diseases (particularly influenza and smallpox) against which the Mexica had no defense. Some of the artifacts were totally amazing - especially the masks made primarily of turquoise, with shells, silver, and various kinds of stones for accents. And, to think that this was a society that had no metal tools for working the turquoise, which is fairly hard.

The oddest thing, however, was that the exhibit was in an enclosed space, and the light was fairly dim. I began to feel more and more sleepy, and eventually was obliged to sit down on a wooden bench and close my eyes for a time. Even then, when I stood up, I felt odd and lightheaded - one of the annoying results of jet lag when you have gotten up and going at almost the exact time your body thinks it's time to fall into the deepest sleep of the night!! We walked the 2.5 blocks back to our hotel and I lay down and promptly feel into a deep sleep. When Peter woke me up 40 minutes later, asking if I wanted to go meet J.D. for lunch, my strongest desire was to say no and to go back to sleep. But, I am very fond of J.D., and as he is very, very, very busy putting together an amazing BBC radio program about objects in the BM, I knew this was the only chance I would have to see him on this trip, so I dragged myself out of bed, and back to the museum we went.