London adventures.. continued

Well I only have a few minutes, but I figured I would make a quick update.

Been super busy, like usual!

This morning, I went to both Westminster and the British Library before breakfast. This was part of my effort to make the most of my last full day in London. But I ended up finishing everything with tons of time to spare! Westminster was pretty incredible.. The minute you walk in, you're surrounded by huge sepulcres (or tombs, I'm not sure of the official term). They just tower over you.. some even appear underneath you on the floor. I wandered through the super old church (built around 1000, or something. That makes it either older than/as old as Notre Dame). I saw tombs of very early British kings, as well as Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Chaucer was buried there too, although Shakespeare was not. Shakespeare had a little memorial plaque, so it wasn't exactly the real thing. But I did find Isaac Newton (and no, there was not an apple on his tomb) and many other old figures.

The British Library was awesome too. When I walked in, I immediately found pages from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks (all written backwards/mirror-style, of course). I also read pages from the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Persuasion (!!!!! I was jumping with excitement!!!), and even Jane Eyre ("Reader, I married him..."). They also had some of the first printed folios of Shakespeare's plays, but since they weren't actually in his handwriting, and published after he died, the only cool-appeal was that they were very old books. Some other cools stuff: very old maps of the world (very off-scale!), one of the first Guttenburg (is that right?) Bibles, and the first complete Bible written (circa 300s or so!!). Oh yes, and the Magna Carta (the English are very proud of it) and some Beatles lyrics scribbled on papers or on the back of cards. Altogether, it was a pretty overwhelming morning for me!!

Tonight I'm meeting my friend Emma and together we are going on a tour of some other parts of England tomorrow: Stonehenge, Bath, and then Stratford-on-avon. Right after our tour bus gets back, we're catching a train to Wales, where we'll stay for a few days. I don't know when I'll get to update again.. but until then, that's all!! (of course, pictures will follow eventually)