It's kind of startling when you open your eyes in the morning and the clock says 9:30!  Well, that's jet lag for you!  We were up kind of late before we were tired and then slept away the morning!  Well, we missed our first free breakfast!  Let's get up and get going!

We have purchased two bus tours outside of London, but they are on Saturday and Monday, so today is open.  We decided to ride the Tube over to the British Library.  It has alot of cool things on display.  One of the Gutenberg Bibles, the first book to be printed on a printing press, they have the Magna Carta, the basis of modern law, they have original "doodles" of many of the hits by the Beatles where they conceived a song, they have originals of many authors (Alice in Wonderland was just a made-up story told by a babysitter to the kids), and original scores of musicians like Beethoven, Haydn, and  Handel and his Messiah (composed in just 27 days).  All pretty cool stuff even though we've seen it all before. 

Oh, they also have a collection of original ancient maps.  Like the one Magellan created when he sailed around the world.  Well, you know what his route was don't you?  From the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic towards South America, down the coast and around Antarctica and back up the coast of Africa to the Mediterranean again.  So his map of North America, is kind of all rounded off on the top!  There's no Alaska, and even Baja California shows a Pacific Ocean "outlet" at the top--kind of like he didn't go up the Baja, but when he got to Seattle and Victoria Island, he just figured that was the Top of the Baja!

We saw on the news tonight that some mechanics were working on a subway train or towing it to maintenance, and they forgot to set the parking brake.  I guess they had a "runaway" train for about 15 minutes early this morning before rush hour.  Luckily there were no injuries or crashes.  It finally came to a stop on an uphill portion of the track.

Well, we couldn't resist, and went to Nando's again tonight.  We tried something different and were disappointed.  Just goes to show you, stick with what you know is good!  We're off early on the first tour tomorrow, so we probably won't blog till late.
BTW, this is the view out our window. Print this post