Day 2 – Exploring London

Today we had breakfast at the hotel. The cashier lady was disgruntled and had to go get a card read-y thingy when I tried to use a credit card for our breakfast, but then she was perfectly nice. We had croissants and apple juice, which was “yellow-green,” as Miel puts it, and “actually apple coloured,” as I put it. It actually tasted like liquid apple, which I suppose is what apple juice should always taste like, but it doesn’t at home. (See all these random details Miel is telling me are interesting enough to put in for your reading pleasure?) Miel is now proud of me for getting a whole paragraph out of breakfast.

After breakfast, we walked to Russell Square and took the Underground to King’s Cross. We saw the trolley in the wall at platform 9 ¾, and glimpsed the actual platforms 9 and 10. We were directed to the British Library by some very nice construction workers. We walked to the library, following their directions. We saw the “Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands” exhibit, which included a painting by Tolkien, Daphne du Maurier’s journal, lots of things we recognized from AP English and Euro, the original Alice in Wonderland manuscript, the notebook in which Willam Blake first drafted “Tyger, Tyger” (a Kaitlin poem), and of course, the reason we went in the first place, THE ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHER’S STONE MANUSCRIPT!!! JKR’S ACTUAL SCRIBBLES AND DOODLES!!! IN BLUE PEN!!!

Can you deduce where we took this?

Canada goose?

Our next stop was Baker Street, specifically 221B. We visited the Sherlock Museum gift shop and continued to the Marble Arch and Hyde Park. Some very nice police/official people were giving out safety brochures, underground maps, and pins to touristy-looking people (which we are). We wandered through Hyde Park, had lunch at the Serpentine, saw a swan and some Canadian geese, as well as some normal ducks and pigeons. It was actually sunny today, so it wasn’t terribly cold.

From Hyde Park, we went to Earl’s Court Station, specifically to see the police phone box there. If you don’t know why we would make a trip just for a police phone box, then you need this. There were very British-looking houses in the area. We also topped up our Oyster cards there. We think “top up” is a better phrase than “refill” or “reload” or whatever we say in the US.

Doooweeeoooooooooo!

Next, we went to Piccadilly. We stopped in Waterstone’s and perused some of their five floors of books. We eyed their British Harry Potter books enviously (they had pretty cloth-bound, gold-edged hardcover volumes with the fun ribbon bookmarks), and decided that the full set of seven would not fit in our suitcases. I bought a paperback Philosopher’s Stone.

Jealous.

We wandered down Piccadilly and found an open-air market with cool stamps and teas and other things. The stamp guy asked Miel if she played football because she, ever the American, was wearing her “Blake Soccer” sweatshirt. She learned the perils of wearing this sweatshirt when he was surprised that she played soccer but did not follow it and had no idea which team had just won whatever big tournament apparently just happened.

We continued on to Hatchard’s, the oldest bookstore in London, which had four or five floors. Miel got an essay by George Orwell. We also browsed through several grammar, etymology, and Spanish film books. (By the way, Kaitlin, the one with Leo y Ángel se llama El flor de mi secreto, y el otro con los Estebanes y Huma se llama Todo sobre mi madre, pero tú lo pudieras haber enterado sin el libro que yo encontré.)

Hatchard's. Yay bookshops!!!

We are starting to recognize the British chains (although half the stores here are American). We’ve acclimated to the time change much more easily than expected.

We now plan to watch some British TV, or find dinner, and possibly some internet, so we can bring our musings to our MOST DEVOTED READERS.

- Sara (& Miel)