11 July 2018

London: Day One

It is a struggle to keep my eyes open at the moment, however this will be a short post since the first day is usually just full of travel, and therefore is not terribly interesting.

We arrived at the airport in Boston to learn that our flight was delayed for an hour, which meant lots of time for a leisurely airport dinner before the plane actually took off at 10:40pm. Neither of us were able to sleep, and we landed in London at about 10am. After going through border security (where we discovered that I can go through the EU line with Phil because of his passport - file that away for the future because of course the non-EU passport line was ridiculously long), we immediately hopped on the Tube to head for Kings Cross. We had a few hours to kill before we could check into our Airbnb, and had decided to visit the British Library.

Prior to our visit, we had lunch at Leon, a healthy fast food chain in London. Phil has most of their cookbooks so when I saw there was one in Kings Cross, I made sure we ate there, and it was delicious!

Now, I know visiting libraries is a really geeky thing to do when on vacation, but this was one doubly special. The British Library is where I decided 7 years ago that I wanted to be a librarian. In 2011, I visited London solo, and took a 'behind the scenes' tour of the library. Walking around, all I could think about was how could I work there. When I came back home, I researched what you needed to be a librarian and started the process of applying to grad school. It took a few iterations - first public library, then archives, and now school library, but I am doing what I love and I don't know how long it would have taken me to realize my passion if not for the visit to the British Library. So every time I am in London, I always make a point of popping in to the British Library, it's a homecoming of sorts.

After a wander around the area for some fresh air, including finding a hidden park, we hopped back on the Tube to Vauxhall, on the south side of the Thames, where our Airbnb is located. Right now we are trying to power through and stay awake until 8pm, to get used to the time change here, but it is getting hard to keep my eyes open so I think I will end this post now! Looking forward to really seeing London tomorrow.



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