Museum of London

We went to the London Museum. It took quite a while but we did a rat hunt. You had to find all of these rats and write about their ancestors and check them off. There were clues. One of the clues was “I’d fancy a snack”. After you found every single one, you got a sticker. We found all of them, but had to ask a museum person to help with one of them. The first two were easier then the last ones. There were 11 rats to find.

Then we went on a walking tour of London. The tour guide called Olivia told us lots of stories. She was a good story teller. I liked the walking tour because Olivia was very enthusiastic. She used her enthusiastic voice for two hours. She was actually a professional story teller. She also had some little props. She had candles for when it was dark. She had a tin thing which when you turned it upside down it made a cow noise. She had spoons, a microphone and a jester’s hat and even sung songs. 

She asked us questions like, “Who was the first Queen who got married to a poor man?” She said, “Remember everybody, there is no such thing as a bad guess”. It made you feel like it was OK to get the questions wrong.

There was a symbol for London city that had two dragons on it and a white shield with a red cross on it. I liked looking for all the dragons on the walls around the city. There were words written between the dragons that said “Domini Dirige Nos”. These words mean “God Guide Us” which has a similar meaning as a Baha’i prayer “O God, guide me”.

One story she told us was about salamanders. People used to think that salamanders were born in fires. When people would collect firewood, the people put the firewood outside ready for the fire. The little salamanders would go into the fire wood and would be sleeping in the firewood. So when the people set up the fire and put the wood into the fire, the salamanders would all run out and the people would think the salamanders were born from inside the fire! There was a group of people that worked with iron and fire in London and they had the symbol of the salamander. They were called the “Iron moungers” or something.

When we got back from the walking tour we found the rest of the rats. Finding the rats was main thing we did in the museum.