Jan. 25th

The end of Westminster Hall in the Parliament Building

On the London Eye

St. Pancras--the Eurostar train station

Today we walked 10 miles and took in the British Library, the Eurostar station, St. Martin in the Fields church, the London Eye, and Parliament.

At the British museum we saw the Magna Carta, Samuel Johnson's dictionary, a Guttenburg Bible, the manuscript for the Messiah, the first Shakespeare folio, the first Greek version of the New Testament, the Lindesfarne Gospels, and so many other rare manuscripts that is was dizzying.

We got to St. Martins in the Fields, and lo, our discussion over whether or not to go to a play and which one was solved. There is a Mozart concert there tomorrow night. The St. Martin's in the Field orchestra is supposed to be the BEST in the world. So we are going to that. We can see any number of plays in LA, but this is a unique opportunity.

The Eye was fun. It takes 40 minutes to go around, and you can really see London.

Non-British folk cannot tour the Houses of Parliament in the winter, but we got to go to the House of Commons and see them debate economic policy. We walked through Westminster Hall which is utterly stunning. It is where Sir Thomas Moore was condemned to death essentially for not supporting Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. If you haven't seen A Man for All Seasons, watch it. It is just about my favorite movie.

There aren't many pictures today. No photography allowed everywhere but the Eye, and I forgot to take a picture of the outside of St. Martin's in the Fields because I was so stoked about getting tickets to the concert. I did take a picture of Westminster Hall before I saw the No Photography sign. The above are a few.