London Bridge

I thought that before I went on with what I'm doing here in Paris, I ought to finish up what I did in London those last few days. I was cramming so much in that I didn't have time to write to you about it.

I think I got up to the Saturday before we left, when I went to Oxford. (It seems like such a long time ago now!) On Sunday, after sleeping in a little too long, I was going to go to Charles Spurgeon's church across town, but realized after I had walked quite a ways to the Tube station that I had forgotten to bring my new pass-- my old one had expired. So I had to go back, and by that time it was too late, so I just walked down the street back to All Souls. I was glad to go back anyway. It was good again, a refreshingly Puritan-influenced sermon on everyday life. And I got coffee afterward! I was about to die from lack of coffee, seriously.

Then I went down to Bunhill fields, the most wonderful graveyard I've ever been in. John Bunyan's grave is there, and William Blake's, John Owen's and all kinds of good people. It was specifically for dissenters. It was raining too, and I was the only one there. But you'll just have to see the pictures.

I won't detail everything I did in those last three days, but I did lots of great stuff-- I went to the Tate Britain and saw paintings by JMW Turner, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and saw their clothing collection, I went to Harrods, I got another of those brownies and went to a concert at St. Martin's, I ate lunch by the Thames, I went to the Imperial War Museum, I toured Westminster Abbey and saw Poet's Corner and Henry V's tomb and all . . .

Oh, and I toured the Houses of Parliament! I almost forgot. That was really interesting-- it looks absolutely amazing on the inside, in the reception rooms and all. It's all in gold leaf and paintings and it's just amazing. We even got to walk around in the House of Lords, where we saw the Woolsack, and in the House of Commons, where you could almost pretend that you were Sir Robert Morton . . . (although it's been remodeled. . .) It was really cool.

I can't remember anything else at the moment, but I had so much fun in London. And there are so many things I forgot to tell you, like how unven the sidewalks were, and how it was so strange to live in a city (I never have!) and how they take their chubby babies out in the parks in their "pushchairs" on Sunday, (the babies are all chubby) and how the mechanical breeze that rushes ahead of the Tube feels so good in the stuffy stations, and how I found it impossible to talk to a local without some of their accent creeping into my voice, and how I started to say "Soorry" in a British accent when I bumped into someone so I wouldn't stick out . . . and a million other things. I liked London.