I found two very interesting museums here in London (at least to me, because I love this stuff!) and had two nice visits! Since they are sort of related, I went ahead and combined the post. First one I went to was the London Transport museum that basically showed the history of trains and buses in London. The displays were very interesting!

One of the first taxis- a chair carried by two men to wherever you
were going. Note their pained expressions!

Early subway train. We ladies had our own section!

A display of a train in the 70s. The outfits on the mannequins
are hilarious.

Another early train car. The man looking at us on the right
is apparently based on the curator of the museum.

There was a really cool display of the tube map using old
tickets for each stop! This is the part of the Northern line
that I am using this summer. :)

Early buses and trams

A bus from the 60s. Notice the Beatle look-alike on the left. Funny.

Hanging out in the bus!

Driving the tube train in a basic simulator. THAT was fun!

A few days later, I went to the Museum of the Docklands over in Canary Wharf. It traced the evolution of using the Thames from Roman times until today. Again, very interesting! I also found a lot of connections to the transport museum which made me feel super smart. :P

View of Canary Wharf

Docks with the museum in the background

The DLR (Docklands Light Railway) heading into the station. Very modern and efficient.

The wooden lid from a Roman (yes, ROMAN!) barrel.

An interesting early map of the US. Notice that Georgia is
short and flat and extends farther west.

This is called a Gibbet. It was used mainly to punish pirates they caught in the docks area. The offender was confined inside the gibbet standing up and hung outside at the dock to be killed by elements and birds and such. It was meant to serve as a warning to others who thought they could get away with piracy!

Model of a ship

The Beatles in a famous photo at the docks from
the Mad Day Out photo shoot!

Another shot of the boys. :)

The last weekend in June, there was a 3 day music festival at Hyde Park called Hard Rock Live. We were able to get tickets to Friday and Saturday (we passed on Saturday's shows due to it not being that interesting. Turns out Paul McCartney made an appearance with Neil Young that day!) It was so much fun and we were able to squeeze up pretty close to the stage both days!

View of the stage on Friday

The Kooks!!!

More Kooks as seen on the giant screens

View of the crowd from the stage! We weren't that far back at all actually!

Kooks...

After a little break, the Killers came on!!!

He liked getting up on top of stage props it seems.

Killers

More Killers

There was a secret keyboard behind that K. Maybe that's what
the "K" was standing for?

Sunday, we arrived a bit late, but we arrived in time
to catch most of James Morrison's set!

James Morrison

James Morrison

Dave Matthews was also there. We used that time to eat lunch on the lawn and couldn't really see the stage (which was fine since I'm not a huge fan). He was surprisingly good, though! It was funny that hardly any of the Brits knew who he was. There were loads of Americans this day, though, since Springsteen was playing later on that evening. They knew Dave!

Sitting on the lawn area during Dave

And now, the Boss!

Max Weinberg

Max again.. I just love this shot with the blurred drum stick!

Bruce belting one out

One of the members of an earlier group came out and dueted with Bruce. Apparently he'd done the same for them the day before. I can't remember who he is, though!

Nils Lofgren

I decided to be a bit ambitious and break my "one museum per week" rule and do TWO museums in one day! They happen to be right next door to each other, so it made it easy to attempt. The first one was the Natural History Museum. It was pretty cool- the main entrance looks like "Night at the Museum". The second was the Victoria and Albert Museum which contains all kinds of random items from jewels to statues to theatre props and costumes. I concentrated on the theatre section and really emjoyed it!

In front of the Natural History Museum.

The great entry hall to the Natural History Museum. It's a dinosaur!

Turtles!

This little boy was so cute! He was about 2 1/2 - 3 years old. He brought his own dinosaur collection and was meticulously arranging them along this wall! Hilarious.

Here kitty kitty...

The world's smallest mammal. This is a super close-up
shot. It was smaller than a mouse.

There was a strange (to me at least) section on human reproduction. It
included some rather graphic displays of how it all starts (did we
really need to see a side cut view of where the penis is supposed to go?)
It moves on to illustrate what the fetus looks like at each stage. This is at 7
months and the fetus model is approximately the size of an adult!

Animotronic model of a velociraptor.

Dino bones

More dino bones...

Standing in front of some more velociraptor models

T Rex attacks!

Dino eggs complete with some tiny dinos!

The great entry hall

Charles Darwin

Façade of Victoria and Albert Museum

One of Pete Townshends' guitars, broken on stage

Theatre costume

Entry sign from the Theatre Royale Drury Lane. Notice the old way of writing out prices.

Lady dancer's hat, meant to symbolize Hamlet

One of George Formby's banjos

Early copy of Shakespeare's work.. might be a first folio??

They even have Beatles stuff here! These are records given by the Beatles Fan Club at Christmas.

Back courtyard of the V&A.