“The Queen Agrees” 7/13

This morning I had a tour of the Houses of Parliament, which was awesome, because our tour guide was amazing. We started in the part of Parliament that used to be a palace, and I was amazed at how luxurious it seemed, with gilt paintings all over the walls, and beautiful mosaic floors. It seemed odd how many statues and paintings of royals adorned the building. There were statues of Queen Anne, William III, and a variety of others. In the room used for the queen to prepare herself to address Parliament, frescos depicting King Arthur fame the room. I was also amused to see that there’s a small, hidden bathroom in that room, in case the Queen needs a private moment before her speech. Practical, that.

Some of the traditions I learned about the British government surprised me. For example, in recognition of the Gunpowder Plot, the night before the Queen visits, men in Tudor-era costume search the basement of Parliament with lanterns. So that happens.

We had a tour of the House of Lords, but I still don’t understand how they work, so I’ve sent an appeal to my book club, and hopefully they can explain it. They don’t really make law, but they can hold laws up in committee? Or something?

In comparison to the House of Lords, the House of Commons is quite a bit plainer. It was rebuilt after the bombings of WWII, and it has more of an administrative feel to it. The statutes there are of former prime ministers, like Winston Churchill.

The relationship between the Queen and the members of the Commons is interesting. The latter cannot assume their place in the Commons without taking an oath of loyalty to the queen, yet she is forbidden from entering the Commons, since a previous ruler tried arresting some of their number. Instead, she invites them into the House of Lords to address them, an invitation they initially slam the door in the face of. The Queen also must sign bills into law, writing on them, “The Queen Agrees.” Apparently, the Queen has never disagreed. I wonder what would happen if she did?

Perhaps stranger than that relationship is the way that voting works for Parliament. When a vote is called, members have eight minutes to report to vote, and to signal that, a bell is rung, not only in Parliament, but also in local pubs and even a nearby sushi restaurant. Our tour guide joked about MPs slamming a pint before racing off to vote. The reason that MPs must report to vote is that voting is one by physically walking down a hall. Those who vote “Yea” walk through one hall, having their name recorded upon entry, and those who vote “Nay” walk through an identical hall on the opposite side of the hall.

When I appealed to my online book club (which contains a lot of British members) to explain this strange way of voting, one person cheekily responded by sending me a link to the youtube video of Fiddler on the Roof’s “Tradition.” Thanks, guys.

After Parliament, we made our way to Trafalgar Square, where the “Get Reading!” program was being held. It was a fundraiser for Beanstalk, a nonprofit that strives to promote literacy in children, by uniting volunteers with students who need reading assistance. Celebrities and authors read aloud in the square, interspersed with musical numbers for children. Both Beanstalk and the Creepy House reading project were promoting information about their programs, and the National Art Gallery hosted its own storytimes. It was a great celebration to see, considering that I’m writing my paper about childhood literacy programs.

 

The Suicide Collection 7/12

This morning, we went to one of the most impressive institutions in the world, the British Museum. I spent the time before our tour revisiting the mummy collection (which always makes me think of The Mummy {“I am a librarian!”}), the clock collection, the early European collection, and the modern Africa collection. There is so much to see at the British Museum!

Then, we got a tour of the archives from Stephanie, the Archivist. The archives are located in the bowels of the British Museum, and we got to travel though some off limits part of the museum to get there, which was really cool.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the British Museum Archives, but it was smaller than I had anticipated. That makes sense, though because almost all of the documents held by the British Museum moved to the British Library when it was spun off. Now, the collection is made up primarily of the Trustee Minutes, which date back to 1753. Apparently these minutes talk about everything, from who’s showing up drunk to meetings, to who isn’t getting along with whom. An attached letter I got to look at described a very rude patron who was disrespecting attendants in the Reading Room.

So, the Minutes will often have letters written to the Director attached, but there’s also a set of letter books that collect transcriptions of everything the Director sent out of the office, so you can read the whole story. It must be fascinating to track some of the conversations about acquisitions or Museum problems.

 

The collection also contains about 12,000 photographs of the Museum and its collections. We got to see some photographs that were taken to be viewed through a stereoscope, which makes them 3D. See? Technology has always been around longer than you think.

Some of the pictures in the collection are of the Museum after a shell hit the coins gallery in WWII. Stephanie told us that during the bombings, the curators packed up most of the collection and stowed it away in country houses and quarries. The only objects left on display for viewers were those deemed less important or disposable. This was known as the “Suicide Collection.” Um, has anyone written the book on that? I would totally read that book!

 

The collection also contains records about the Museum’s exhibits, including the posters, leaflets, etc., and photographs and plans for the display. Some of the older folders even contained paint samples for the displays. It’s cool that the Museum makes a point of saving that information for prosperity.

There’s also a collection of paperwork concerning the building and the property, itself. We saw the building plans for the current Museum, and even saw the deed for the property when made out to its previous owners in 1694. Apparently, for each signature needed on the deed, a wax seal had to be affixed for each signature, or it wasn’t valid. The More You Know.

The other thing that the archives house are the signature logs from the Reading Room. They have the request form and signature of everyone who has requested to do research there, from 1790-1973. Some of the highlights that we got to see were Karl Marx, Bram Stoker, Beatrix Potter, and T.S. Elliot.

When we left, I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it must be to be the librarian for such a unique collection.

Make Mine Tea 7/11

 We spent the morning at the Royal Geographical Society, getting a run down of the collection from Rie, the Principal Librarian. The RGS was founded in 1830 to promote scientific geography, which at the time basically meant exploration. They sought the source of the Nile, the NW passage, etc. For a long time, it was a bit of a boy’s club, though in the 1890’s they admitted women for the first time. Apparently, the older members then put up a ruckus, and no more women were admitted until 1913.

The collection contains about 2 million items, including a million maps, making up the largest map collection in the world. There are something around 2,000 atlases, the oldest of which is from 1490, and based on the writings of Ptolemy. The collection also contains half million photographs and a huge glass lantern slide collection, which reminds me of that scene in The Golden Compass, where Lyra spies on her uncle presenting his explorations with glass lantern slides. The collection also contains 250,000 books and 15,000 objects, which were really interesting.

All of the objects in the collection are from donation, usually from the families of deceased explorers. There is currently no classification system in place, and conservation is handled offsite or by the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Society, who clean the artifacts once a week.

We got to see a lot of interesting items from the collection, including the hats that Drs. Stanly and Livingstone were wearing when the former came upon the later and (according to legend) uttered, “Mr. Livingstone, I presume?” There was also a map drawn up by Lawrence of Arabia, an Inuit sun-visor to prevent sun-blindness, and a silver platter presented to the Captain of the Beagle for accurate mapping on the voyage with Charles Darwin.

We also heard the story of a quest to find a Northwest passage that ended in disaster, when the ship got trapped in the Victoria Straight, and the entire expedition perished trying to march to safety. Only one document describing the disaster has been found, and the log books that might tell more of the story are still missing, as are the ships. Apparently, Canada is funding an exhibition to try to find them.

One of the rescue attempts to try to find them involved putting colors with the rescue ships coordinates on arctic foxes, in the hopes that one would raid the camp of the missing sailors and get caught. This led Allison to the logical conclusion that there are now lots of arctic fox corpses out there with tiny collars still attached.

 

We also got to see items that were found on George Mallory’s body when it was recovered from Everest in 1999, perfectly preserved. We heard all about how his partner’s body and the camera were never found, though they did his find his “Eye sacs.” “Eye sacs?!” We inquired, horrified. Yeah, “Ice Axe,” He reiterated, with a slightly less pronounced accent. Two countries divided by a common language!

We grabbed lunch from a pub in Covent Garden, and then found our way to Twinings. Twinings had a little “museum” in the back of the shop, illustrating its role in the history of tea. More exciting, though was the free tea tastings that were going on. We had a lot of fun sampling the different teas, and then rummaging our way around the available collection. For some reason, the place was being filmed for broadcast on Chinese television? So if you catch site of me on a Chinese network, now you know why. I ended up getting some Darjeeling, and a tea bag holder that says “Twinings,” even though I don’t use tea bags anymore. It was cool being in a tea shop with a real sense of history. No Teavanas here, yet.

Allison, Christine, and I decided to go on the London Eye in the evening, and despite the deceptively long-looking line, we barely had to wait before getting on the Eye around 8:45. The views from the Eye were impressive, and I was surprised again at how close everything in London is. I had no idea we lived so close to Covent Garden, until we walked back from lunch earlier that day, and until I went up in the eye, I didn’t realize how close Buckingham Palace was. It was really fun, touristy thing to do.

Christine wanted to walk along the river to see the fairy lights on the wharf, and we ended up grabbing dinner at The Wharf, which we regretted when the temperature started dropping. Still, we had a good time, and were taking fun pictures as we walked back to the dorm. Which is when this guy who offered to take a photo of all three of us. He positioned us with St. Paul’s in the back, and went for a really artsy angle. When he was done taking the picture, he started walking back down the river with us. This guy was not the brightest bulb. When we explained what we did, he seemed to think that we worked a lot with Wikipedia, and then tried explaining how links work on Wikipedia… Yea. He also made a comment that he couldn’t be a camera thief, because he doesn’t have a “forgettable” face. Which seemed super arrogant to me. When we finally split ways, we laughed the whole way home about that encounter.

The Crown and The Prostitute’s Church 7/10

What a curious title, you might be thinking, but it relates to two of the most memorable moments of the day. We started the day at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we got a tour of the most extensive Art and Design collection in the world, which was started 150 years ago. They have over one million items, and serve around 30,000 patrons every year. Patrons have to request items they wish to view, because, like the British Museum, the collection is stored by size. There’s also a librarian dedicated to the special collections, whose amazing title is the “Invigilator of Special Collections.” I just kept picturing Colin Salmon’s character in Exam.

The V&A wasn’t built to house a library, so protecting and housing the collection has its difficulties. Most of the building isn’t air conditioned, for example, so fans are used to try to keep the temperature controlled, and humidity is monitored, in case it grows dangerous for the collection. To protect the older books, the V & A requires readers to use book cushions, to keep the weight off the book’s spine. However, the rooms were designed to use electricity, rather than gas lighting, to protect the collection.

 

The library staff is focused on the preservation of the collection. They have a budget for the conservation of about 30 books per year, and those books are usually ones that are going to be used in displays. The collection budget is almost doubled by donations, and 43% of the collection is in foreign languages.

To cap our visit to the V&A, we were allowed to see some of the more impressive items in the library collection. Not only were we show these items, we were able to handle them, which was amazing. I turned the pages of an illuminated book of hours from around 1400, leafed through a ₤20,000 replica of Da Vinci’s Codex, and even read some of the David Copperfield manuscript, written by Charles Dickens. You could turn through the pages, and see where he’d decided to add sentences, and scribbled them on the back. That was pretty amazing, and I’m so grateful to the V&A for allowing us that experience.

 

I decided to stick around at the V&A for a while, to look at the Stained Glass and Silver collections (because y’all know how I am about things that are shiny). There were some really cool silver pieces, although some of the religious pieces looked like gravy boats. Then, we came to the jewelry collection. And if I’m a fan of shiny things, sparkly things are my kryptonite.

The first thing that immediately caught my eye as I walked into the collection was this GORGEOUS sparkly diamond crown. It was actually elevated in a glass case, so I asked if Kate would take my picture standing behind the case, so it looked like I was wearing what I had deemed, “My crown.” Unfortunately, we were stopped by a curator, because pictures weren’t allowed… as though they could damage the stones, or something. We walked through the ewelry collection and it was really amazing and sparkly. Christine noted that the style of necklaces from around 700AD, silver and gold circles, would blend right in at a Claire’s today. Apparently the 700s are back, my friends.

That evening, a couple of my classmates and I went on a Jack the Ripper walk, which was fantastic! We went to various sites, and heard the gruesome murders described in grisly detail. Our tour guide was full of interesting tidbits. Like the fourth woman who was murdered? She was released from prison only about an hour before her death. She’d been jailed for being drunk and disorderly, running around and impersonating a fire truck. Yeah.

The place she was running around, and the area where Jack got her, was the location of a church our tour guide said was once known as “Prostitute’s Church.” “Oh,” I thought, “They must have been a place where prostitutes could get alms, etc.” Nope! It was called Prostitute’s Church, because it was a place where prostitutes would go to pick up men. So that’s a fun fact for you! The tour was really great, but it left me uneasy that night before I fell asleep.

We were hungry went we got back to Waterloo Station, and the line for the burrito place was outrageous, so we grabbed some McDonalds. I tried to order a double cheeseburger with one slice of cheese (aka, McDouble), and it was like I blew their minds. The girl working the counter just did not get it. Did I want extra cheese? No. She finally grabbed someone from the kitchen to come to the counter and talk to me, to understand what I wanted, and then looked at him and said, “Can you make that?” Seriously. Eventually, they figured it out, and we got our food and left, but it was kind of a hilarious encounter. Still, a funny way to end the night, considering the creepy tour we’d just been on.

Much Ado About Nothing 7/9

We spent the day in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is, for those of you who were not paying attention in Freshman English, the home town of Mr. William Shakespeare. It was a three hour bus ride from London, which was less than pleasant, but it was a really gorgeous day when we got to Stratford, sunny and warm, without being overly hot.

Stratford had a lot of really cute shops, like one dedicated to Beatrix Potter, or another to organic teas. We also found what to us seemed like a knock-off Harry Potter store (All England is Harry Potter), Magic Alley, but according to some of the people who visited it later, I guess it had an assortment of fun magic stuff? We didn’t see it that way.

We didn’t do the tour of Shakespeare’s house, though I did photograph the outside, and we did visit the gift shop, where we found that not everyone spell checks.




Then we protolibrarians decided to visit the Stratford upon Avon Library and Information Centre. I was hoping to get some information about their early children's literacy programs for my paper. Unfortunately, there wasn't a children's librarian working at the time. I did take the time to review the collection. Fun fact: it’s exactly like ours. It's a small collection, but I saw the same popular children's books at Stratford that we have at Green Hills, just with the UK covers. I did check out their programming, and in addition to storytimes for toddlers and young children, they also advertise the Bookstart Bear program. I did get to speak with the working reference librarian, and she told us that they have limited funds for programming, so what they do is mostly through partnerships in the community. She seemed excited to talk to a bunch of visiting librarians, and we all ended up buying the library's really cute tote bags.

We then decided to visit Shakespeare’s grave, which was, you know, gravelike, though it has a fun curse on it. After grabbing dinner from a place called the Lazy Cow, we spent the rest of our afternoon in the park next to the river, enjoying the beautiful weather.

That evening, we went to the Swan theater, to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “As You Like It.” It was a really great performance, and it had an interesting style choice, because the script was all pure Shakespeare (with the exception of some fun crowd work done by

Touchstone), but the costumes and props were all modern. It was really fun to see them lean into the minifridge and pop open a beer in the middle of a passionate soliloquy. At one point, Touchstone walked in with his stuff in a Sainsbury’s bag. The play was wonderful, but by the time it ended, it was late, and we were tired.

We then proceeded to get turned around trying to find where the bus was parked. All of Stratford pretty much shuts down at 5:30, and it was around 11 pm, as we wandered the dark and abandoned town. We luckily ran into a couple, and asked them to direct us to Shakespeare’s house. This elucidated a confused, “Shakespeare?” which was hilarious. Kate wisely asked them to direct us to the location of the jester statute, which was unmistakable. Even then, though, their directions were really inexact, though we finally managed to get to the bus.

Finally crawled into bed that night around 2 am, and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Are These Mannequins Living Plastic? 7/8 Part Two

I loved the LAARC, and it left me wanting more, so I went on over to the Museum of London to look at some of the collection on display.  There’s currently a “Royal Arrival” display, which has a large family tree for the Royal Family and samples of baby clothes worn by young royals over the years, including a cap from Charles I. It really made me wish that the Royal Baby would be born, soon!

The Museum of London covers just that, from prehistoric London up through the Olympic events last year. There was a really interesting display called “Our Londinium,” which was a project where students reinterpreted Roman artifacts. So, for example, they had some coins with the emperor’s image on them, and they displayed those next to a magazine, to compare celebrity power.

 I really loved the Museum of London. They had a very powerful tribute to the Black Death, where a video describing the course of the illness played, while in the background, a reader recited the names of some of the individuals killed by the plague. It was chilling. I also really enjoyed a similar video set-up for the Great Fire, where they told the story using firsthand accounts of the fire spreading. It was interesting hearing about the different ways people reacted. Some were heroes, and stood to battle the fire, or help others, and some used the fire as an opportunity to steal or price gouge. Plus, apparently the fire was so hot that the stones of St. Paul exploded, and the lead melted! So that’s amazing. 

 

The museum recreated a Victorian London street, with a series of shopfronts and displays all fully furnished. There was a bank, a tea shop, a glass store, and even a public bathroom, so that was interesting. There was also display set up to resemble the pleasure gardens. The display was in a darkened room, so that a video of a scene being acted out in the garden could be projected onto the walls. However, there were also a ton of mannequins in period costumes in the room, and in the dark, it really felt like I was in an episode of Doctor Who, and I was going to be attacked. Especially from this one. It felt like she was their queen, with her antlers.

There was very little War Era stuff, because I guess that’s covered in the Imperial War Museum. They did have an original lift from Selfridges, which was cool to see, because of that recent TV show, and they had a bunch of ‘60s era clothing. Overall, the Museum of London was a lot of fun.

I wanted to meet up with some of the group at Blackfriars for a late lunch/early dinner, but there were serious delays on the Circle Line, so I spent forever waiting for a train. Luckily, my friends are awesome, and they hung out with me while I ate once I finally got there. We decided to go our separate ways after dinner, and I took the opportunity to check out Harrods.

Any department store that distributes maps is significantly large. I was just sort of in awe with Harrods. It has a room solely dedicated to chocolate, tea, and coffee. I wanted to buy everything, but it was super overpriced. Harrods really is a “luxury” department store. I made a point of visiting the Disney room, and the Toy Kingdom, which spanned four rooms. It was awesome! I found a really fun kids book called, Shhh! Don’t Wake the Royal Baby! Which I almost bought, because it was so crazy.

 

Before I left Harrods, I made my way through the Pet Kingdom, where I thought to myself, “All they don’t provide is the pets!” and then saw the puppies. I also checked out the Harrods gift shop, because a department store this big apparently warrants its own souvenirs. Somehow I managed to spend a couple hours in the store, and I never even bought anything.

There are still card catalogues in the world 7/8 Part One

This morning we went to the London Archaeological Archiveand Research Centre (LAARC), where we were given a tour by the assistant curator. LAARC is associated with the Museum of London, which displays some of the artifacts that LAARC has found and preserved. In addition to the prehistoric collections

  and the archives, there are social and working history collections, which archives everyday objects, like telephones and tools. Anything that has been used in London is up for the collection, provided they don’t already have an example. The purpose of the collection is to preserve humanity, has it has been in the past and as it is today. They had a ton of old phones, which really reminded me of my dad’s insistence on keeping all of our old cell phones. They also had a switchboard from Buckingham Palace. We also saw the Royal Urinal from Covent Garden (Really!) and a Furby, so it’s a wide ranging collection.

We asked Daniel about strange anecdotes about the collection, and he told us that he once had a request to see the “Psycho.” He searched through the catalogue, and it turned out that the Psycho was an old fortune teller machine, like the thing from the movie Big. According to the special note on the item, it’s only viewable to members of the Magic Circle, because the mechanisms are magicians’ secrets. They took it out of storage and tried to clean it up, but it as still frightening to look at. So they tried putting a towel over it, but that just made the whole thing worse, because people would walk by and peek under the towel and get absolutely terrified.

We then made our way to the processing area of LAARC. Apparently, LAARC gets a lot of human remains, and there are currently 16,000 humans under the Museum of London, right now. We learned that when human remains are reburied, and can’t be put back where they came from, they’re buried in Corporation of London graveyards. We got to see some artifacts that had just been recovered and were being cleaned, including  a porridge dish from the 17^th century, and a lot of spoons.

The LAARC collection was started in 1830, and now has over 10.5 km of shelving of artifacts. The collection is partially managed by a volunteer system, which has won awards. Volunteers spend time going through the collection, getting it all properly packed and catalogued. They’ve been trying to standardize everything, including the labels, boxes, and even where staples are placed. LAARC is an active part of its community, hosting presentations and lectures for the public, as well as at schools. They also have public digs, such as the one they recently had at the house of the Duke of Northumberland, which apparently was used for the exterior Hogwarts shots… ALL OF ENGLAND IS HARRY POTTER.

We visited the LAARC archives, which are neatly stored in identical boxes. There was a momentary scare, when we started cranking the moving shelves, and hadn’t checked to make sure they were empty. Ooops. Safety first guys! I was surprised to see that they still had a large card catalogue, though I suppose it makes sense to have a physical back-up, since boxes and boxes of artifacts could be misinterpreted if their catalogue data was lost. The LAARC has huge reference collections for researchers, where they store examples of brick, pipe, and building materials. Others can compare their finds to the LAARC collection, in order to date sites or identify types of materials.

The building was previously a steel tubing factory, so there’s a sprinkler system in place. We were told that the sprinklers couldn’t hurt the artifacts, but it would damage their boxes. And there’s apparently about a million pounds (the money not the weight) worth of cardboard on the shelves.

We finally reached my favorite room, the glass and pottery collection. They had everything from ancient Roman pot shards to Tudor era drinking vessels, and Wedgeworth tea cups. My favorite was the collection of Royal Family commemorative cups and plates. I got really excited thinking that a new cup might be added soon to celebrate the Royal Baby!

Paris Part Two 7/6 & 7/7

We drove on the coach bus to Versailles, and on the way, we saw this pillar of smoke, which turned out to be a car on fire. This was the talk of the day for the rest of the day. To be fair, it was a towering inferno, but I’m still not sure why it was on the top of my list of things to blog about today.

The line at Versailles was outrageous, curving four or five times through the courtyard, but it moved fast. Still, the place was packed. The place was really interesting, I saw the Hall of Mirrors and the room of Marie Antoinette, but the press of people had me moving quickly. I took the time to look at the gardens and compare them to Peterhof in Russia. I have to say that Versailles was prettier, but, as Peterhof stressed, they aren’t able to always run their fountains, like Peterhof does.

When we got back to Paris, we tried going to the catacombs, but they were closed by the time we got there, so we went to the Paris Hard Rock for dinner. Then  we went on a quest to find the Arc de Triomphe, which was successful, though we saw it from a distance.

We ended the day with an evening cruise on the Seine. It was amazing, with the warm breeze and smooth ride. It was a fabulous way to see sites like the Eiffel Tower. All along the river, Parisians just sit and hang out with wine and friends. Apparently, they do that all the time. We saw impromptu dance parties, and just

hundreds of Parisians sitting out and drinking along the Seine. It was a very cool atmosphere.

The next morning, I tried to get to the catacombs again, but failed. I did get to see an adorable puppy on the Metro, though.

The bus back from Paris was unbearably hot, to the point where at the back of the bus was stifling. After a couple of hours, Sean managed to figure out that a skylight could be opened, to get some fresh air. I swear it saved us.

We left from Calais, which really made me think of The Scarlet Pimpernel. When we went into France, there was no border patrol, we just passed in our passports, but on the way out, we had to pass through the French border patrol, UK border patrol, and then had o

ur luggage checked by customs. It was a really strange difference, but it meant we got our passport stamped.

The ferry ride back was really nice, since the sun was blazing, and we could watch the water as we went. I have to say that we were all really grateful to get back to London.

I have no clever title: Paris Part One 7/5

To get to Paris, we took a bus, a ferry, and then a bus again. We left London at midnight, and I wasn’t sure the undergrads would all survive the trip. They didn’t seem to understand how to speak quietly at night when people were trying to sleep. Tired me was very enraged. After a couple of hours, we reached the port of Dover. Turns out the white cliffs of Dover? Just cliffs that are white. Kind of anticlimactic.

Our bus drove straight up onto the ferry that was to take us to France. As we filed off the bus, I was so relieved. I was certain we would be able to find a quiet seat on the ferry, to catch some sleep. I was very wrong. The ferry was super busy, and the rooms were fully lit, despite being around 3 am. Still, we grabbed space on some chairs and tried to fall asleep, and then the temperature began to fall, instead. It was so cold on that stupid ferry that I could not sleep. I just curled up and shivered until we reached Calais. Luckily, by the time we were back on the bus, everyone seemed on board for quiet time, so we all struggled to get some sleep.

Still, when we finally arrived at St. Christopher’s Inn, the hostel we were staying at, we were groggy and unhappy. Our male leaders didn’t seem to understand that why we would want some time to change and clean up, but we finally convinced them we could use some time. After pulling ourselves together, some, and dropping off our luggage, we walked down the block to find ATMs. We stopped in a little bakery, where I purchased “Chocolate Bread.” It definitely lived up to the stereotype of French pastries being delicious.

When we were slightly more human, Doug took us on a little tour of Paris. We started by walking down the canal that is immediately next to our hostel. Then we had our first Paris Metro experience. I am not a fan of the Paris Metro. It’s gross, there’s what I termed, “Metro Scum,” which is huge swaths of mold that drip

down onto unsuspecting travelers. It’s also dirty, smelly, crowded, and occasionally the lights on the trains go out, or the trains stop. Plus, the maps are super difficult to puzzle out, since the lines are very similar colors, like everything is a shade of pink or shade of green. Despite the grossness of the Metro, I was so tired, I actually nodded off a couple of times. Our tour resumed at the site of an ancient Roman theatre. I was amused to see that the local boys use it as a football field, totally regardless of its history. There was a great contrast in that.

Some of us grabbed crepes for lunch, mostly, I think, because we knew the words “crepe” and “fromage.” We walked as we ate and ended up at Notre Dame. Notre Dame was beautiful, with a breeze off the Seine that was much appreciated, after walking in the blazing sun. Notre dame really reminded me of the cathedrals in Spain, huge, highly decorated, etc. It’s turning 850 years old this year, so there’s a restoration project on going. One thing I thought was interesting was that only one of the bells is original. The others were melted down during the French Revolution. They’re falling apart now, and don’t sound very musical, so new bells will be installed as part of the anniversary.

We then walked down to the Louvre Museum, which was enormous, and yet still crowded with people. Y’all know how much I appreciate art, so my priorities were the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the stature of Ramesses II, all of which I was able to see. After years of hearing how everyone was shocked by how small the Mona Lisa was, I had expected it to be tiny. When I finally found it (after walking past the room it was in and down to the opposite side of the gallery), I was surprised that it was the size of a typical portrait.

After we saw the Mona Lisa, we walked through the Ancient Greek area to see the Venus de Milo, and then down into the basement, past the statute of Ramesses II, into the medieval Louvre. It was nice and cold down by the old medieval walls. I was really annoyed that the museum staff didn’t reinforce the posted rules. I saw people taking pictures of paintings with flash, which made me want to go over and stop them, if the curators wouldn’t.

After the Louvre, Katie, Liz, and I walked around and took in Paris. Paris doesn’t have benches, really, so we ended up sitting in a store window for a time. We had dinner at a really nice restaurant that used to be a pub frequented by the

Musketeers. I went with what seemed to be the most French choice- duck. The duck was really good, but it came with a side of French fries, which was odd. We tried to catch a boat cruise that evening, but we missed the last one.

Exhausted, we limped our way back to the hostel, where we discovered that there was confusion between the hostel and our program leaders, and they put five of us in a room with only three beds left. Drama ensued. In the end, we all got beds, but Kate had to go to four different rooms.