London #4, Museum of Natural History

Day #4, London.

London is a great city.   Quickly passing and politely dismissing other great cities, San Francisco, New York City, Paris and I am pretty sure is perched on top.  My apologies to Tokyo,  Moscow, Berlin (I have never visited you) and not sure that I will have time remaining in my life because London is so incredible and so big that I think you could live here for several years and not take in all its glory.

Amy has been buying these books for the kids called Horrible Histories.   They usually involve the sordid part of nation building like battles, murders, stupid acts (like Giving the Saxons part of England so they 'would not attack' anymore).   That lasted about 3 months I think.

I am currently reading about the Normans, It is called the Storman Normans.  William the Conquerer was a Norman. He was from France.   The Normans were Vikings that settled in France (they were given part of France by the French King if they would not attack anymore).  I am not making this up.   They promptly attacked.  They also attacked Southern Italy and drove away the Germans (later day Saxons) and then the Pope talked them into attacking the middle east and recapturing the 'Holy Lands' from the Muslims.

The Saxons did the same thing and gave part of England as well as something like 20,000 lbs of gold to the Vikings not attack anymore.  This did work either and this is origin of the term, Dane-geld.  Basically you are fool if you think you can pay off a bully and they will go away silently.
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Most of these Horrible Histories are known for wars.  Lots and lots of violent, bloody, wars and not much diplomacy.  The Saxons came and attack the English.  The  English attack the Scotts and Welsh, the Vikings attack the English and the French.   The Spanish were fighting the Moors for many, many years so they were not too involved.

They also include other interesting stories like screw ups,  some of the ways that famous died.  William the Conquerer died after he was thrown from his horse and crushed his fat belly on the saddle.  He died 5 days later and then they go into this story about how they tried to get him to his burrial site but one thing after another it was much delayed and he was very stinky by the time they got there.

I am not sure why this sort of stuff helps remember history but it really does and I know that Jordan is devouring the books (and so am I).

Sadly, they are out of print but Amazon has a bunch of them.

But it makes me realize that my ancestors were not from England and Sweden but probably Vikings and Saxons.

We also went to the Museum of Natural History in London.  It is a fascinating Museum and Rivals the best in the world (like Smithsonian, etc) and the building itself is Gorgeous as well.  

London is special, but tomorrow we head to Paris via Eurostar or Chunnel.   I can fall in love with a new favorite city all over again.

Eric and Amy and Crew.