On Jan 2nd, we ended up in Clapham in the afternoon where Jenny greeted us with open arms. She is very tired as she spent Christmas in Atlanta, GA with her mum’s family and New Years in Madrid with friends, but is putting us up anyways. We chatted for a bit learning the news, then walked to Clapham commons. It’s been a lovely day outside but was getting colder so after a nice walk, we went shopping at Seinsbury’s where Lara and I stocked up on Cadbury’s chocolate to take home. We met one of her housemates Sam and talked in the living room until Jenny fixed us lentil lasagna for dinner. We came back to Jenny’s to warm up and put on some dry clothes as we rested and watched Downton Abby, a television series.
On Jan 3rd, we went to King’s Cross and asked several workers as we searched for platform 9 & ¾ as referred to in the Harry Potter series. We finally found it, nowhere near platform 9 and Lara desperately needed her picture taken with the set up. Then we went to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and to the British Library. It is huge! The books are stored in a glass “tower” which mechanically calls for the shelves and they run along a trolley line. We didn’t go into their temporary exhibit of royal manuscripts (because it cost) but we did explore their permanent collection of historical documents which include Some highlights were two copies of the Magna Carta (1215), a Gutenburg Bible (1454), Map of the British Isles (1546), scores from Henry Purcell (1680), Handel’s Messiah (1781), Codex Sinaiticus (300s), Illuminated copy of the gospels (995), Japanese:Lotus Sutra (1280), Golden Haggadah from Spain (1320s), Romeo and Juliet (1753), numerous Eastern sacred texts, and some of the first copies of King James official translations of the Bible to English (celebrating its 400th birthday). Next, we traveled to Oxford Street where we took in a few of the shops, getting a few nice things though the weather was absolutely horrid and we got drenched more than once and nearly blown away!
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