London within London

Once more, I'm late on my promises of posting on time. But this time, you will receive photos of what I am doing here in London! Yesterday, we got a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral Library. I wrote a blog on it for class earlier and you can read that here. It was really amazing and we got to see behind the scenes at the library.

And of course, I don't have a photo of the front of the building, despite being there three times in three days. I will rectify this situation.

After that, we made an attempt to see the National Gallery but did not have enough time to make it there and back for our reception. We had a welcome reception at Somerset House, which is directly across the Thames from our dorms. It is very beautiful and has been used in several movies. 

The reception was held in the Chapel of King's College, who's decoration is sometimes referred to as a "Victorian Acid Trip" since the architect was a fan of laudanum. And it was crazy but I forgot my camera so I do not have any photos of it. You can Google it, though, if you're especially interested.

The Librarians then went out for more drinks after the reception and happened upon a German bar, where I finally found good beer! Zee Germans know how to make good beer. A do believe a good time was had by all but several of us were not feeling that hot this morning.

Today, we went to three different locations. The first was the Barbican Library, and I will be posting on that in my other blog this evening. It is a very atypical public library that is located in the City of London. The City of London consists of one square mile and it is the boundaries of Roman and Medieval London. Today, it is one of two cities within the Greater London Area, the other being the city of Westminster. I've already been to several major buildings located in this region, such as St. Paul's Cathedral, the Museum of London, and Guildhall, photographed on the right.

After Barbican, we got a tour of a corporate library from an alumni of the course. She now lives and works in London at Linklaters, the fourth largest law firm in the world, in their acquisitions office. I won't say too much about it because they are very private and confidential about their business but it was interesting to see a different side of libraries.

We ended our day at the Museum of London, a place I've now been to three of the five days I've been in London. Most of us didn't stay to see it, but headed instead to the National Portrait Gallery! We saw the Botticelli, Titian, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, and even a da Vinci! And they really loved to paint religiously themed art so we saw a lot of Jesus and his mother, Mary. It was really awesome but once more, our legs and feet were completely shot from all of the walking and standing. Thus, we headed back to the dorms for an evening of writing blogs and uploading photos.


Speaking of which, here are some photographs of my room! It's small but nice and I like it. Although, the shower seriously gets everything in the bathroom wet for the next six hours. Enjoy!

It's really exciting! I'm sure you're all so jealous.

Tomorrow we head to Oxford and it's an all-day trip so I probably will not be able to blog until Thursday. It's also the 4th of July and we are planning on celebrating our American independence from England in a British pub. It should be a blast. Til next time!

- Kate