First stop after checking into my designer hostel (which, designer it may be, it's still a hostel, sigh) was the British Library. The display section of the library is tiny and I've visited it half a dozen times but I keep going back. There's something about standing in a room with the spread and breadth of western literature, along with a good representation of the eastern canon. You step from an early manuscript of Beowulf to Beatles lyrics written on the back of a birthday card to a 17th Century illustrated copy of the Ramayana. There's something to being surrounded by artistic genius.
After the British Library, I made my way over to the south bank of the Thames, for lunch at Borough Market. Ehrmagerd. How I have missed good, flavourful, delicious, varieties of food. Not to say that Middle Eastern food isn't amazing but that's all there was in Jordan. Wandering through Eastern Market, I picked up a chorizo sausage sandwich, a few fresh peaches, a half kilo of cinnamon-dusted chocolate covered almonds, fresh pressed olive oil and some tapenade. Lunch for now, dinner for the next year. I also made some new friends eager to ask whether I thought the government shutdown meant the end of America's supremacy world-wide. No comment.
From Borough Market, I wandered down the South Bank. Southwark Cathedral (the boy's choir was practicing and put my meager singing talents to shame), the Golden Hinde, Tate Modern and the South Bank Center, including a skate park, the London Eye and Houses of Parliament. And an extremely creepy Mickey Mouse.
I ended the evening at a National Theatre production of Othello, starring one of my crushes, Adrian Lester. I was six rows from the stage and can attest that he's as handsome in real life as he is on the big screen (I was too nervous to take a picture of him so you'll have to take my word for it). He also had a very handsome supporting cast who spend the whole intermission playing soccer for my amusement.
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