The (MI)5 of us visit the British Museum.

We had a leisurely start this morning as our first destination was only just down the road - the British Museum. We split into two groups of about 12 and our group's guide, Diana, was wonderful. She took us on a whistle stop tour of the highlights of the museum - the Rosetta Stone, Ramses II head, the Elgin Marbles, the Lindow man, etc. I loved loved loved the tour. Dad is an ancient history teacher, and the bedtime stories I heard growing up were all here, validated by real life evidence. I could have spent hours but we quickly used up our time and had to meet at the restaurant for lunch. Our afternoon activity was equally fun. We did a "spy walk" competition around Mayfair. It was an amazing race style walk with picture clues, check in points with spies on the way and puzzles to solve. Our team was the Starrett five plus a family of three, a mother with 17 year old twins. We had a ball. Lots of laughs, some good deductive skills and a will to win. We arrived back at home base with the most points and a good fifteen minute lead on the other two teams. we waited in a cute pub with a drink bought by our tour guide. Everyone won a prize - a London themed tin of shortbread shaped like a telephone box. We had a free evening but team starrett was feeling the pace, so we ate at a very good Italian chain restaurant, Prezzo, and the four boys made a quick trip to the British Library which was open till 8pm. Guest Post: The Library housed items such as one of the original copies of the Magna Carta, hand-written musical notations by Handel, Mozart, etc., scientific journals and notes of Alexander Fleming, Leonardo da Vinci, etc., handwritten lyrics from the Beatles ('Michelle, on the back of an envelope and 'Hard Day's Night' written on the back of a kid's birthday card), and other cool stuff.