London

In the past I've had some time restrictions that made me unable to write here extensively, but right now I should have more than a few minutes to update.

I'm in London now, just pulled in yesterday. London is exactly how I imagine Tokyo to be. Urban sprawl as far as the eye can see, cars and pedestrians and bicycles, a thousand languages spoken at once, noise at all times of the day. The first day I was here I didn't feel all that great, mostly since the bus ride in was cramped and hot and long. I went to sleep at 10pm after calling home and didn't wake up again for another 12 hours, which made me feel quite a bit better.

Today is our day off, which I decided to spend at the British museum and the British library, two large and famous buildings in London. The British museum has lots of mummies, the rosetta stone (a big basalt block that helped archeologists first translate Egyptian hieroglyphics), and the Elgin marbles (pillaged from the Athenan Parthenon). I was a little bored with it though, because it was hot inside and I don't really care about any of those things all that much. The British library, on the other hand, is AMAZING. They have a room that contains original handwriting and texts of Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Magna Carta, the Beatles' lyrics, Handel's Messiah, and various other things that were the English major's equivalent of striking gold.

For the rest of the day I need to do my laundry and finish reading Macbeth. I suppose most of the reason my posts are short is not that I have no time, but rather that I run out of things I want to say. Please email me questions and I will happily expound upon anything. Or post comments. Luke, come visit me! I'm in Holborn off the Picadilly Line to Cockfosters (I love the Cockfosters line).