Mini Bus

Possibly the most compact sightseeing bus ever made :) But definitely the coolest by miles :)

Technik Museum Speyer

We went to Technik Museum Speyer today as it's raining... So no flying :( Museum was thoroughly interesting even though I couldn't read the signs. They had a load of displays outside including a 747 which was mounted some 100ft in the air, you could climb up to it and out on the wing for some fantastic views.

Edit - Updated Photos to a Slideshow

Metallica

Awesomeness is the only word I can think of. Despite the fact that I am sore, poor, smelly and totally knackered now I am on a high for the long journey home having seen Metallica :)

Tutankhamun at the O2

After seeing Spamalot we had pre-booked ticket to go see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the O2 (The landmark formerly known as the Millennium Dome). I won't bore you with the details, but due to some unforeseen closure in London's otherwise reliable(ish) public transport system, getting there was a nightmare.

We did however arrive on time (By about 5 mins). On the way in we were treated to airport style security checks, passed through the 1st one, carrying my bag and the mountain of electronic equipment I usually carry. The second one however (To my embarrassment) picked up that I had a pen knife in my bag pocket. Thankfully all that meant was I had to pick it up later.

The exhibit was really well thought out, with plenty of room around the cases to see what was in them, however even though they were using this pre-booked ticket system to limit numbers (At least that's what I hope it was doing) their was still far too many people scrabbling to take a look at the exhibits.

Everything was well lit so you could see all the fine details, as an engineer I always look at the way things are constructed, It's very humbling to look at some of these items that are well over 3000 years old and appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship that went into making them. One particular statue that sprang to mind was carved from wood with a interlocking series of alternate triangles which gave the impression of a twist/locs hairstyle. The intricacy of this amazed me, as instinctively I worked out a CAD design to achieve such a pattern, it suddenly dawned on me that by hand this must have taken hours to achieve, and to do it so accurately (And without making a single mistake) would take a level of skill only a master craftsman with many years of experience would have. I doubt they'd be many people the world over that could replicate such work using the tools and methods the Egyptians had, which is very sad.

Humbling to think that whilst the Egyptians had been creating all this beauty for thousands of years the British Isles was still relatively primitive and had only just started using stone buildings for housing.